Arnold Schwarzenegger: “After leaving the governor’s office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago.” What’s the douchiest part of that sentence?

poll by twiigs.com

Today -100: May 17, 1911: Spaniards versus pigs

Kosher Headline of the Day -100: “Taft Praises Jews.”

Non-Kosher Headline of the Day -100: “Spaniards Defeat Five Hundred Pigs.” The commander of Spanish troops in Spanish Morocco believed they were under attack by tribesmen one night and opened fire. Their commander sent a message to the Spanish consul claiming a great victory, then found out the next day that they had in fact routed a herd of pigs.

Meanwhile, in soon-to-be-French Morocco, French troops kill 100 rebel tribesmen.

British Chancellor David Lloyd George introduces a budget that includes an astonishing (to me, anyway) £1.5 million for the coronation. Also, members of Parliament will receive salaries for the first time (a sop to the Labour Party included in the bill, which is still working its way through the Lords, cutting back the veto power of the House of Lords). £2,000 per annum. Previously, only cabinet ministers received salaires.

Another of Count Zeppelin’s dirigibles, the Deutschland II, comes to grief, crashing into its hangar. It was windy. The Deutschland II lasted six weeks, a much longer career than that of the Deutschland I.

Today -100: May 16, 1911: Of guns, trusts, and pogroms

Gun control (permits for sale or carrying, registration of sales) passes the NY Legislature.

The Supreme Court affirms that Standard Oil must be broken up within 6 months. However, it also, in an act of gross judicial over-reach, construes the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to ban only “unreasonable” restraint of trade, despite the rejection of that language by Congress in 1890 and in attempts every session since then to so amend the Act, precisely because Congress didn’t trust the courts with the power to decide what constituted a reasonable or unreasonable restraint of trade.

Teddy Roosevelt refuses permission for the Progressive Republican League of Nebraska to put him on the Republican ballot for president in 1912.

Jews in Kiev have been expecting a pogrom ever since a boy was found murdered and mutilated near the Jewish quarter, leading to the traditional “ritual murder” rumors.

Nope, this still doesn’t make the IMF interesting. Important, but not interesting.

I’m a little surprised that every managing director of IMF hasn’t been arrested for sex crimes. Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s evident assumption that he has a droit de seigneur to use a Ghanaian maid however he sees fit just seems a natural extension of what the IMF does to the Third World every single day.

Strauss-Kahn had been thinking about running for president of France, so that probably won’t happen. Now if he were Italian....

Today -100: May 15, 1911: Of unions

President Taft, speaking to the convention of the Brotherhood of Railroad Men, opposes employees of the federal government being permitted to join unions and strike. Allowing strikes would be to “recognize revolution as a lawful means of securing an increase in compensation for one class, and that a privileged class, at the expense of all the public.”

Today -100: May 14, 1911: Of the most ignorant man on military affairs in the United States

Says the newly chosen secretary of war Henry Stimson, “I’m probably the most ignorant man on military affairs in the United States.” Hell, it was good enough for Rumsfeld. Stimson may have intended it as a joke, but the NYT agrees with his self-assessment. However, Stimson does possess one great advantage: he is a protege of Teddy Roosevelt, who Taft wants to appease to stop him running against him in 1912.

There’s been a slight disagreement between Francisco Madero and Gen. Pasqual Orozco. Namely, the general pulled a gun on the provisional president and ordered him to fire his cabinet. Pancho Villa supported Orozco, demanding that federal Gen. Navarro – who was rather vicious during the fight for Juarez, ordering prisoners killed and the like – be turned over to his troops and executed. Orozco eventually calmed down. Soon after, Madero personally drove Navarro out of town, got him a horse, and he is now hiding out in the cellar of a department store in El Paso.

In Russia, Father Iliodor, aka The Mad Monk, has split with the Orthodox Church and with Rasputin, with the support of the Tsar.

Headline of the Day -100: “Insane Patient Celebrates.” The 42nd anniversary of her confinement to the NJ state asylum for a “mild but incurable mania.” No word on whether there was cake.

Dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, with extreme prejudice

Attorney General Eric Holder explains that the Bin Laden assassination was not an assassination because he could have surrendered if he’d done it really really quickly before all those bullets hit him, and that the assassination was completely legal under international law (no one asked Holder whether it was legal under Pakistani law).

And he explained what separates us from those who we are fighting: “I actually think that the dotting of the i’s and the crossing of the t’s is what separates the United States, the United Kingdom, our allies, from those who we are fighting.” He did not clarify what we use to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. I’m guessing bullets and blood respectively.

Today -100: May 13, 1911: Of foolish stories of intervention

Secretary of State Philander Knox sent the following instructions to the US ambassador to Mexico (see if you can read the first sentence out loud on a single breath): “You are authorized officially to deny, through the local press and otherwise, as under instructions to do so, all foolish stories of intervention, than which nothing could be further from the intentions of the Government of the United States, which has the sincerest friendship for Mexico and the Mexican people, to whom it hopes will soon return the blessings of peace, which is not concerned with Mexico’s internal political affairs, and which demands nothing but the respect and protection of American property and life in a neighboring republic. You will use the language of this instruction.”

Secretary of War Jacob Dickinson resigns, to spend more time with his coal mines. Taft nominates as his replacement Henry Stimson, failed Republican candidate for governor of NY in the last election.

Today -100: May 12, 1911: Of lassoes

Duuuuude! A few days ago, rebels in Mexico made a bloody horseback charge on a federal machine gun in Mazatlan, trying to put it out of commission, and one of them succeeded by... wait for it... lassoing it.

Madero names a provisional cabinet in his new capital of Juarez. The federals plan to court-martial Gen. Navarro for surrendering Juarez. Also entering Juarez: American criminals, pickpockets, and suspicious characters (according to Madero). The rebels are allowing US Secret Service agents into the city to arrest them.

Newt and the enemies of normal Americans

Probably you’ve seen the Mother Jones article “Newt in His Own Words,” widely linked on the interwoobs this week. Here’s some more they left out:

1978: Running for Congress for the first time against Virginia Shapard. She intended to commute to D.C. from Georgia and hire a nanny. He accused her of breaking up her marriage (this was just before his wife got cancer and he dumped her).

1994: “You cannot get to universal coverage without a police state.”

1994: called for Republicans to take back the Senate from the “enemies of normal Americans.”

1995: called for mandatory death penalty for drug mules, with mass executions, 30 or 35 at a time.

It wasn’t just Susan Smith’s murder of her two children that Gingrich blamed on “how sick the society is getting”. The following year, 1995, when a 9-month pregnant woman was murdered (along with her two children) and the fetus (which survived) cut out, I guess to be sold on the black market, Gingrich blamed the welfare state for creating moral decay.

In 1996 he explained what freedom is all about: “A mere 40 years ago, beach volleyball was just beginning. Now it is not only a sport in the Olympics. There are over 30 countries that have a competition internationally. There are some 13 states with 25 cities in America. And there’s a whole new world of opportunity opening up that didn’t even exist 30 years ago or 40 years ago, and no bureaucrat would have invented it. And that’s what freedom is all about. Freedom is about having a dream, and maybe I feel that particularly because the greatest Georgian of this century, Martin Luther King, went to the Lincoln Memorial and said in his extraordinary speech, ‘I have a dream...’”

1997: Clinton was thinking about apologizing for slavery. Gingrich said this would be “emotional symbolism” – one day after the House passed a Flag Burning Amendment.

By the way, in 1990, his opponent, David Worley, came within 1,000 votes of unseating him and might have won but the Democratic Party decided to give his campaign no funds because he broke omerta on talking about the pay raise Congress had voted itself.

(Update: Here’s one which I couldn’t find earlier because I googled pigs instead of piglets; Gingrich 1995 on why women should be kept out of combat: “If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for thirty days because they get infections and they don’t have upper body strength. I mean, some do, but they’re relatively rare. On the other hand, men are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it, doesn’t matter, you know. These things are very real. On the other hand, if combat means being on an Aegis-class cruiser managing the computer controls for twelve ships and their rockets, a female may be again dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.”)

Today -100: May 11, 1911: Of trousers & aviators, Juarez, modest women, and big mirrors

Headline of the Day -100: “Woman in Trousers Daring Aviator.” A... wait for it... girl is taking flying lessons. A Miss Harriet Quimby (who will be the first American woman with a pilot’s license but not the first aviatrix). The Times seems almost as shocked by her wearing trousers – “For more than a week it was not even suspected that she was not a man”. (Spoiler alert: Quimby died in a plane crash in 1912).

Lt. George Kelly, one of the Navy’s new pilots, dies in a crash.

Nicaragua’s President/coup leader Estrada resigns and flees the country.

Mexican insurrectos capture Juarez. Gen. Navarro surrenders (interestingly, to Col. Giuseppe Garibaldi, Jr., grandson of the liberator of Italy) and Madero invites him and his officers to dinner, then puts them on their word not to leave the city.

For what seems like the thousandth time, women’s suffrage fails in the New York Legislature (90-38). One assemblyman argued, “For every woman who wants the ballot there are ten modest women who don’t.” A legislator from the Independence League said he was not surprised to find the machine politicians opposing women’s suffrage. Harry Heyman of Queens harrumphed, “I would like to know what Mr. O’Connor means by machine politicians.” Replied O’Connor, “If you can find a mirror large enough, take a good look in it; there it is.” Burn, 1911 style!

Worth every penny

White House spokesmodel Jay “The Carny” Carney, asked yesterday about the National Journal’s estimate that the cost of tracking down Bin Laden has been $3 trillion, said: “I have no idea about that estimate, but I think most Americans would feel that it was worth every penny.”

My, it’s almost like the Obama administration has taken complete ownership of every one of George Bush’s foreign policies and his domestic “security” policies. But that couldn’t be right, could it?

Worth every penny. Every fucking penny. All 300 trillion of them.

Sigh.

Everything there is to know about human gullibility and human greed is summed up in one sentence

“One person was told a Rolex watch was needed to remove demons.”

Today -100: May 10, 1911: Of parades, the People’s Republic of Tijuana, and polar bears

A NYT editorial admits the success of this week’s women’s suffrage parade in gaining “for perhaps the first time the serious attention of their foes,” despite the fact that the parade “by all the established conventions was distinctly unfeminine and therefore obnoxious and ridiculous”. It did so because “more notably and more obviously than ever before, the suffrage women in this vicinity showed themselves as a class to be active, courageous, and determined,” where previously the movement had seemed to consist of a few leaders who did all the talking. “We now know that there is an army as well as Generals”.

What there isn’t, however, is support in Albany. The relevant committees of both houses of the Legislature refuse to report suffrage bills out.

The rebels in Mexico are in the process of capturing and/or burning Juarez. And socialist rebels have captured Tijuana, which is why it is a utopian socialist paradise to this day.

Teddy Roosevelt denies that he will spend the summer of 1912 hunting polar bears in the Arctic.

Today -100: May 9, 1911: Of incidents of war

Madero is claiming that Díaz’s promise to resign (eventually when he feels like it after all unrest ends completely), somehow “changes everything” and can lead to the resumption of peace negotiations.

In another sign that Madero doesn’t control all the rebels, there is an attack on Juarez by 150 or so rebels. They beat the federals, but have to withdraw because the main rebel army didn’t join them. Bullets crossed the border (didn’t Taft tell them not to do that?), killing five in El Paso, but the US has decided to treat the deaths as “incidents of war,” and not use them as an excuse for military intervention.

Today -100: May 8, 1911: Of the dictates of conscience, lepers, and savage Africans & big ships

Francisco Madero decides not to capture Juarez after all, in an effort to stave off American intervention by keeping the fighting away from the border and stray bullets from crossing it. Forces will be withdrawn from the north and will now focus on capturing Mexico City, which the insurrectos say they will do within a month (it would be easier if they hadn’t blown up all those railroad bridges). Madero is making a huge tactical change and giving up a militarily advantageous position in the north purely to appease the US.

President Díaz announces that he will resign – just as soon as peace is restored. Or as he puts it, “when, according to the dictates of my conscience, I am sure that my resignation will not be followed by anarchy.”

A father in Rhode Island is refusing to give up his 15-year-old son to the authorities. The kid has leprosy, and they want to confine him to either the Massachusetts leper colony on Penikees Island or the Pawtucket Pest House, for the rest of his life. Who wouldn’t want to live in a place called the Pawtucket Pest House?

Headline of the Day -100: “Savage Africans Menace Big Ship.” The British freight steamship Kasenga, now in Brooklyn, had some difficulties in East Africa.

Today -100: May 7, 1911: Of armistices, parades, and wholesale debauchery

The armistice in Mexico ends, President Díaz having made no move to resign.

A Madero-supporting newspaper in Mexico reprints the claim of a NY socialist newspaper that the US is about to invade Mexico to restore peace, and then compensate itself for its trouble by annexing another strip of Mexico south of the Rio Grande.

The women’s suffrage parade went off as planned.


The NYT notes, “There were several negro women in the parade.”

One banner: “New York State Denies the Vote to Criminals, Idiots, and Women.”

Portugal ends the Catholic Church’s status as the state religion. Priests will no longer be paid out of taxes, the state is taking over all church property, and services must be held between sunrise and sunset with a government official present. Papal bulls are not to be published without government permission.

The Colorado Legislature adjourns without electing a new US senator to replace the late Charles Hughes, thanks to a deadlock among Dems. Colorado will have only one senator until 1913.

Headline of the Day -100: “The Wholesale Debauchery of the Ohio Legislature.” Several members of which were indicted this week for taking bribes from private detectives posing as lobbyists.

Every single fibre

Unexpectedly, the Scottish National Party has been elected to an absolute majority in the Scottish Parliament, and will at some point hold a referendum on independence. David Cameron says “If they want to hold a referendum, I will campaign to keep our United Kingdom together with every single fibre I have.” He wants the UK kept together with his fibres? Every single one of them? How many fibres does he have? Ah, I see, fibre is from the Latin fibra, meaning entrails. So he wants Scotland literally tied to England using his own intestines. Personally I support Scottish independence, if the Scots vote for it, but I’m also quite in favor of disemboweling David Cameron, so I’m rather conflicted here.

........

This is what happens when you blog on a Friday night: you start by picking at a phrase – “I will campaign to keep our United Kingdom together with every single fibre I have” – that can be read in two different ways, and it just goes all weird and disgusting and unpostable, but you post it anyway, just because you’re bored (although not so bored that I’ll write about the failure of the Alternative Vote referendum).

You’re welcome.

Why Bin Laden had to die

Initial reports of military actions are like the first receipt the Safeway cashier gives you, inflated. Fog of war and all that, but the second reports never make the US military look better, any more than the “mistakes” made by Safeway cashiers are somehow never in your favor.

(Guess where I just came from and guess who tried to over-charge me $5?)

Anyway, I’m assuming until proven otherwise that the reason we’re not seeing the Bin Laden pictures is that he was shot at extreme close range and was wearing Winnie the Pooh pajamas.

Not that it matters. Bin Laden was always going to be shot dead after making a threatening gesture. In the same way that Clinton executed brain-damaged Ricky Rector to prevent him becoming another Willie Horton, and would likely have lost the 1992 election had he not done so, so Obama had to kill Bin Laden to prevent him becoming another Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. If shooting Bin Laden dead sealed his re-election, taking him alive would very likely have led to endless demagoguery over where he was held and whether he was tried and by whom and when and where he’d be executed, and whatever Obama did would be wrong and he might very well have lost the 2012 election. Capturing Bin Laden alive would just have been dumb electoral politics.

Today -100: May 6, 1911: Of suffrage parades, Jewish colonies, and great combinations of wealth

Women’s suffragists are about to hold a large suffrage parade in NYC to try to put pressure on the Legislature to pass a suffrage bill. Or, as the NYT puts it, they “will try to demonstrate their fitness for the suffrage by parading on Fifth Avenue.” Actually, the Times editorial isn’t being as sarcastic as that sounds. It adds that the parade “will indicate the courage of the paraders, the strength of their conviction, and their determination to win. No cause can be won without efforts of this strenuous and showy sort. ... They may get the suffrage some day, but never by reading papers at women’s clubs and passing resolutions.” It goes on to “sincerely hope, for their own sakes and the sake of the State, that they will fail.”

While not the first suffrage parade, the spectacle of women marching and giving speeches outdoors is something new, previously the province of women of the Salvation Army, and is still somewhat controversial among the national suffrage leaders. So what does a women’s suffrage parade look like? It will begin with someone playing “the delicate little lady of long ago in her sedan chair”, followed by a float featuring women in the domestic industries that have since moved into factories and shops, then actual workers from those factories and shops, then a float from Pennsylvania showing early Quaker women. It will be “a democratic procession,” i.e., no automobiles and only one carriage, for old pioneer suffragists who can’t walk five miles. There will be male supporters, led by Prof. John Dewey. Women from the five suffrage states, and 20 women from suffragist Norway, will march under their own banners (and a five-starred US flag, which some people will write letters to the Times denouncing as unpatriotic). There will be groups of college women and athletes. Some businesses are threatening to fire any female employee who marches in the parade.

Banker Jacob Schiff is planning to finance a colony of Jewish farmers in New Mexico.

In Kansas City, MO, on his testing-the-water-tour, NJ’s Gov. Woodrow Wilson says that what needs to be corrected in political life is “the control of politics and our life by great combinations of wealth.” Phew, glad they cleared up that problem 100 years ago.

First Republican debate: One of the things about leadership is that you’ve got to show up

Random quotes from the first Republican presidential debate:

Tim Pawlenty: “I love the Huck.”

Pawlenty complained that none of the big names showed up at this debate, evidently worried that he was being totally eclipsed by Herman Cain, the Godfather’s Pizza dude, instead of by Palin or “The Huck.” His greatest dream is to be totally eclipsed by Donald Trump. “One of the things about leadership is that you’ve got to show up,” he said, desperately hoping that no one would ask him what the other things about leadership are.

Pawlenty: “I think the momentum is on my side.”

Pawlentum™ is the new Joementum.

Pawlentum™ says he is the child of a “working-class family in a meatpacking town.”

Speaking of meatpacking, Rick Santorum (see what I did there?) (what did I do there?) said: “Anybody [i.e. Mitch Daniels, who wasn’t there] who would suggest we call a truce on moral issues doesn’t understand what America’s all about.” Moral panics and telling women what they can do with their hoo-hahs?

Ron Paul came out in favor of legalizing heroin. SUGGESTIONS FOR BUMPER STICKERS IN COMMENTS, PLEASE. There was great applause from all the audience. He is so our next president.

T-Paw on the shooting of Bin Laden: “But that moment is not the sum total of America’s foreign policy.” It kind of is.

T-Paw-Canoe-and-Tyler-Too attacked Obama for letting the UN tell us what to do in Libya because the UN is “a pathetic organization.” Now you’re just hurting its feelings.

Santorum: “It’s not just checking the boxes. It’s having the courage to lead.”

Ron Paul, asked why he supports the Defense of Marriage Act despite having said that government shouldn’t dictate who people can and can’t marriage, said oh, he didn’t mean state governments. Or water and sewer district boards, community college districts...

Paul said Americans “vote from their bellies.” Or from their inner thighs under their ball sacs, in the case of his new heroin-addict fanbase.

Wait, that wasn’t the line I started writing. Paul said Americans “vote from their bellies,” glancing nervously at the pizza guy.

(I didn’t see the debate and there’s no transcript, so I’m piecing this together from various sources. One has that quote as “Americans vote with their bellies,” which is an image I could have done without.)

He went on: “Because it’s whether they’re hungry, or have jobs or need things, that’s why they vote.” Oh, I thought I was the only one who ate my “I voted” sticker.

Everyone except the pizza dude would totally release the dead-Bin Laden pictures.

Santorum, the pizza dude, and Pawlenty would all resume waterboarding. Paul opposes it simply because it’s ineffective.

They were all in favor of lowering taxes.

A little song, a little dance...

Headline of the Day: “Israel Stops Hairdressers Travelling to West Bank.” And quote of the day: “I’m not sure what security risk [is posed by] hairspraying models.”

And note the death of Claude Stanley Choules, the very last surviving combatant veteran of World War I. Known as Chuckles, because the last surviving combatant veteran of World War I would just have to have been called Chuckles. He also served in World War II and, as if two world wars weren’t scary enough, a 76-year-long marriage. He was a pacifist.

Today -100: May 5, 1911: Of national insurance, anti-reelectionism, grave-robbers, and Hitchcock plots

British Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George introduces a National Insurance bill, a plan for insurance against sickness and unemployment. Workers’ contributions would be partially matched by contributions from employers and the state, but the benefits would be mostly administered by “friendly societies,” which are private voluntary bodies formed in the nineteenth century for the purpose of providing mutual insurance by members of the upper working classes and lower middle classes. The Tories aren’t putting up any significant opposition, talking about death panels, nuthin’.

Mexico’s Congress is working on a bill to ban re-election for the offices of president, vice-president, governor, legislator (although a provision to ban the relatives of incumbents from succeeding them failed).

Evidently those English archaeologists didn’t steal the Ark of the Covenant, but are believed to have stolen Solomon’s sword, crown and ring.

Disappointing Headline of the Day -100: “Sees a Hitchcock Plot.” Sadly, the Hitchcock in question is Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock, accused by Sen. Jefferson “Jeff” Davis (D-AK) of a “diabolical plot” to bankrupt a women’s magazine. Not exactly North by Northwest, is it?

What does it say about American politics

that all 235 voting Republican members of the House voted for the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion” Act? How is this a party-line issue?

Today -100: May 4, 1911: Of crashes, peace, and raiders of the lost ark

Don’t think I’ve mentioned that the US has an air force now, which the NYT calls the Army Aero Corps, although I doubt that’s the official name. Anyway, its head, Lt Paul Beck, just had a little crash in the Texas desert after his engine cut out at 300 feet, but was uninjured.

Pres. Taft opens the Third National Peace Congress in Baltimore. Talking in a veiled way about Mexico, he says that the US is hampered in bringing peace by the suspicions of others about its territorial ambitions. Taft, the former governor of the Philippines, says the US has none.

Riots in Jerusalem because some English archaeologists are believed to have stolen the Ark of the Covenant (they then fled the country very quickly indeed, on a yacht)(possibly with a giant boulder rolling after them)(or should I be doing H. Rider Haggard jokes?).

Today -100: May 3, 1911: Of mothers, polar explorers, child labor, and pie

The National Congress of Mothers’ 15th annual meeting passes resolutions for a federal law against polygamy, for a ban on the marriage of “feeble-minded and degenerate” people, and denouncing soothing syrups, medicated soft drinks and comic supplements.

Competing polar explorers Scott and Amundsen meet at Whale Bay.

Following the Triangle factory fire, NYC aldermen vote to require quarterly inspections of all buildings in NYC used for manufacturing. Mayor Gaynor vetoes it because there aren’t enough inspectors.

The NY Assembly passes (86 to 36) a bill to restrict the work of children under 18 and women under 21 to 54 hours a week. Republicans object that the bill is unconstitutional because it curtails the right of contract.

Headline of the Day -100: “Ate Pie Daily, Lived to 96.” Twice a day, in fact. Job Tillou of South Orange, NJ. He also chewed tobacco.

It’s a miracle!

Peru’s President Alan Garcia says the credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden belongs to... wait for it... the late Pope John Paul II. According to Garcia the extra-judicial execution was, literally... I mean LITERALLY, a miracle.

Today -100: May 2, 1911: Of May Day and special delivery

May Day riots in Paris, just, you know, because. At one rally, a German worker made an anti-militarist speech, saying that in the event of war, German workers would refuse to fight against their French comrades. That’s reassuring.

Rebels in Mexico capture Mazatlan, Durango City, and Topolobampo.

A man attempts to mail himself in a wood box from Lawrence, Kansas to Galveston but is forced by heat to come out in Fort Worth.

Peace and human dignity

First Obama shows us a birth certificate, then a death certificate.

I’m not sorry to see bin Laden dead, but I can’t share in the triumphalism currently flooding the airwaves, nor do I feel any sense of relief, since I don’t expect this to change anything.

(Triumphalism in Obama’s address: “tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to.” Dude, it was killing a dude on dialysis, not the freaking moon landing. Though it did take as long to accomplish.)

I could have done without Obama’s use of the word justice – “bring him to justice,” “justice has been done.” This is George Bush’s definition of justice, a shooting without a trial. It might be justice in a moral sense, but from the standpoint of a state – the only standpoint a head of state should adopt – the phrase “justice has been done” should only follow a judicial process.

Obama: “His demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.” Because nothing says peace and human dignity like sending soldiers into a foreign country guns blazing.

Speaking of peace and human dignity, this happened 8 years ago today:

Protocol

Following NATO’s attempted assassination-from-above of Qaddafi that killed his son and three grandsons, mobs have attacked the American, British, French and Italian embassies in Tripoli. A British official called the attacks “a very strong breach of international protocol,” an example of British understatement made all the more impressive by the fact that he was on fire at the time.

Today -100: May 1, 1911: Of train delays and aerial torpedoes

New Jersey’s new governor, one Woodrow Wilson, will take a four-week speaking tour of the Western states, but claims not to be running for any higher office.

The Mexico City Express which arrived in San Antonio at 2:30 pm yesterday -100 (the only line still open between the capital and the United States) was stopped ten different times by rebels looking for federal soldiers.

Who will be the first to weaponize aircraft? The problem is that light-weight 1911 airplanes can be destabilized by the recoil of guns. Krupp has just patented a self-propelling aerial torpedo for use against a “hostile balloon.”

Un-Saif

Yesterday, Qaddafi called for a cease-fire and negotiations with NATO. Today, NATO killed his son and several of his grandchildren. A simple “No” would have sufficed.

Today -100: April 30, 1911: Of tunnels, hanging, and hobble skirts

The Colorado Legislature votes to dig a tunnel through the Rockies. The NYT seems to think that the most important thing about this story is that the bill passed a close vote in the lower house due to the votes of two women legislators.

Minnesota abolishes the death penalty.

The NYT updates the situation in Mexico: the government is fuuuuuuuucccccckkkkked. The military is losing or on the defense everywhere. “The patriotic efforts of the members of Congress to arouse the conservative sentiment throughout the county to the support of the Government is largely without effect, because most of those gentlemen have no local standing or influence. They have spent their whole lives in the capital. The case of Deputy Bulnes is a typical one. Although he has represented Lower California for twenty years, he has never even visited his constituency.”

The queen of England has banned hobble skirts and other tight skirts from court. Not that you could curtsy in one anyway.

It’s the only logical explanation

Last month, doctors in Libya claimed to have found Viagra in the pockets of some of Qaddadi’s soldiers. And you know what that means, don’t you? Don’t you? Well, UN Ambassador Susan Rice does. This week she told the UN Security Council that Qaddafi is giving his troops Viagra to encourage them to engage in mass rape.

(Asked to back up the Viagra claim or to offer any evidence of sexual assaults by Libyan troops, State Dept spokesmodel Jake Sullivan declined.)

Ah, Texas

The Voter ID bill Texas Gov. Rick “Good Hair” Perry wants won’t let people use college photo ID cards, but will let them use handgun licenses.

Today -100: April 29, 1911: The philosophy of what now?

Taylorism. Frederick Taylor holds a demonstration of “scientific management” at Carnegie Hall. He showed how 30 girls in a bicycle factory can do the work of 100 in less time. Taylor bemoans the short-sighted trade unions for opposing putting 70 girls out of work through scientific management. For example – and watch out for one of the greatest phrases in the history of the English language – “When my friend [Frank Bunker] Gilbreth worked out his philosophy of bricks he ran against the unions.”

Headline: “Russia Grants Privilege to Jews.” Recently Russia’s been expelling Jews from the cities and restricting their education, so it’s good to see them being granted an entirely new privilege. Jews in Siberia will be allowed to use the curative waters of Minusinsk for up to two months, provided they have a medical certificate and don’t engage in trade while they are taking the cure.

Wait, which sports stars?

So the British will be voting on whether to hold elections under the Alternative Vote system. The Tories, currently running Britain despite having received just 36% of the votes in the last general election, like the current system just fine and say that AV, in which voters rank candidates according to preference, is simply too confusing for the poor, stupid British people (Jimmy Carr points out that AV is just basically a game of fuck-marry-kill) (although he called it shag-marry-kill, which is just adorable).

Anyway, I got an email from the Conservative Party chairthing which has this convincing sentence: “So if, like me, like Churchill, like many leading historians, sports stars and scientists, you know that AV would be a disaster for our democracy...”

(The other big news story in Britain is that at Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron adopted a line from an insurance commercial and told Labour MP Angela Eagle, who had just pointed out that he had told an untruth, “calm down, dear.”) (Cameron says the furore over this proves that socialists have no sense of humor.)

Today -100: April 28, 1911: Of reapportionment, a Jew in Egypt, the value of fingers and toes, dinners, and bosh

The House votes on a reapportionment bill, expanding the House from 391 to 433 (435 if and when Arizona and New Mexico become states). That would be one rep per 211,877 people. This is the last time the size of the House was increased, as was done in every previous decade (every previous decade also saw the accession of new states). (Historical oddity: after the 1920 census, there was no reapportionment. Not sure why; check back here in ten years.)

Reapportionment of districts will be decided by the states as usual; the D’s voted down an amendment to have it done by the Department of Commerce and Labor and another one which would have allowed for referenda for those states so inclined. Republicans from Democratic-dominated Kentucky and Missouri complain that gerrymandered Democratic congressional districts in their states have much smaller populations than Republican ones, and propose several amendments to correct that, all of which fail.

Rep. Victor Berger, Socialist from Wisconsin, proposed a joint resolution for a constitutional amendment to abolish the Senate, which he described as “an obstructive and useless body, a menace to the liberties of the people and an obstacle to social growth; a body many of the members of which are the representatives neither of a State nor of its people, but solely of certain predatory combinations”. Berger may be disciplined for violating the House rule against telling the truth about criticizing the Senate.

France announces that its military intervention in Morocco is necessary to protect foreigners at Fez, re-establish order, and protect the sovereignty of the sultan. Isn’t it nice of them to help out like that?

In other North African colonial news, Britain is rumored to be planning to send Sir Mathew Nathan to Egypt as its new Resident. Or as the NYT puts it, “Jew May Rule Egypt.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Value of Fingers and Toes.” In Lake County Superior Court, an employee at the Standard Steel Car Works who lost four fingers in an industrial accident was awarded $100, and another man got $500 for five toes.

President Taft is visiting New York City. Last night he attended a dinner of newspaper publishers, a dinner of Methodists, and a dinner in honor of retired Congressman J. Van Vechten Olcott.

Headline Expletive of the Day -100: “Bosh, Says Taft of Annexation.” At, I believe, his second dinner of the evening. He again denied plans to annex Canada. Canada must be feeling either relieved or kind of insulted by the constant repetitions of how the US is just not that into them.

Today -100: April 27, 1911: Of unwanted colonies, unwanted immigrants, and robes

The Dutch seize an American possession, Palmas Island, part of the Philippines. But the US doesn’t plan to object because the island is considered valueless. Don’t know what the 50 or so residents of the island feel about that. Hurt, is my guess. The issue went to arbitration in the 1920s, when Palmas was awarded to the Netherlands. Today it is still part of Indonesia, although closer geographically to the Philippines.

Canada may start banning the immigration of African-Americans on the grounds that they can’t adapt to the cold climate and are therefore likely to become public charges.

Headline of the Day -100: “Kitchener in Robes at Last.” Lord Kitchener takes his seat in the House of Lords for the first time since being ennobled 12 years ago.

Today -100: April 26, 1911: Of truces

Madero didn’t have the authority to agree to a meaningful truce after all. Other rebel leaders continue to fight.

Daily Telegraph headlines containing phrases that sound like euphemisms for masturbation, but aren’t

From today’s paper. Those phrases highlighted in red for the masturbation-euphemism impaired.

“Menzies Campbell Accuses David Cameron of Stoking AV Row.”

“Key Chernobyl Officer Criticises Japan’s Fukushima Efforts.”

“Women Join Morris Men.”

“Clobbering Clegg is Too Harsh a Punishment.”

“Royal Wedding: Heavy Rain Forecast for Big Day.”

From bias free of every kind, this trial must be tried

ProtectMarriage, the people who brought us Prop. 8, California’s 2008 anti-gay-marriage initiative, are demanding that the ruling against the proposition be set aside on the grounds of the judge’s bias, not because he’s gay – no they certainly would never suggest such a thing – but because he’s in a long-term relationship with another dude. If Judge Walker were having one-night stands with a different pickup from a leather bar every night, they would be okay with that. And a little bit aroused.

ProtectMarriage do not say in their appeal whether judges in heterosexual marriages, or indeed in long-term heterosexual relationships that might lead to marriage, should also recuse themselves.

A very Hope-y Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day

Another year, another “Armenian Remembrance Day,” the term Obama uses for Armenian GENOCIDE Remembrance Day. Again, he uses the words massacre and atrocity, and the Armenian term Meds Yeghern (great tragedy), but not genocide, never genocide, and again he uses the passive voice: “In 1915, 1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to their death”. By whom? He does not say. Possibly by a Martian invasion. Possibly by leprechauns. He talks about the need to learn from history, but he’s awfully vague about what that history is.

My favorite euphemism for genocide – “common history”: “I support the courageous steps taken by individuals in Armenia and Turkey to foster a dialogue that acknowledges their common history.”

And what should they do after this dialogue? They should “rebuild bridges of understanding toward a better tomorrow.” So get right on that, guys.


Naturally, Turkey complained about the mere acknowledgment that Armenians died, saying that Obama “distorts the historical facts. ... One-sided statements that interpret controversial historical events by a selective sense of justice prevent understanding of the truth.” Damn that selective sense of justice, always getting Obama into trouble and hilarious hijinks!

Today -100: April 25, 1911: Of colonies and kidnapping

France is using some unrest in Fez as a pretext to land troops and turn Morocco into a French colony.

Los Angeles Assistant District Attorney W J Ford is arrested in Indianapolis for kidnapping for his part in the apprehension of John McNamara for the LA Times bombing, and they’re looking for the LA Times’s private detective as well.

Today -100: April 24, 1911: Of noisy deaf schools

The terms of the armistice in Mexico: all combatants stay where they are, not reinforcing their positions; work on fortifications, railroad repair, etc to be suspended; provisions can be brought into besieged Juarez (but not booze).

The Mexican rebels cut the last remaining railroad route to the US, because it was being used to move government troops. The rebels had an understanding with the railroad company that it was not to do such a thing if it wanted to keep operating.

Disappointing Headline of the Day -100: “Too Noisy in Deaf School.” A couple of employees like to party.

It’s official

Syria hates sad people.

I never had anything new

Michigan state senator Bruce Caswell proposes that the $79 a year the state spends on clothing for children in foster care only be spent in thrift shops for second-hand clothing, saying that when he was a kid, “I never had anything new.”

Poor Bruce. I propose that we rectify this by all chipping in to get Bruce Caswell everything, and I mean everything, new in the Sears catalog.

Inserted anally.

Today -100: April 23, 1911: Of armistices, trucks, dirigibles, and cigarettes

Madero agrees to an armistice, without Díaz having agreed to resign. Madero is now denying that he ever demanded that. Whether all of Madero’s lieutenants actually consider the armistice binding on them is another matter.

The NYT notes that Madero has been pretty much out of the loop, not having seen a newspaper in his camp for a month, and has just learned, for example, of the negotiations between his father, the Mexican ambassador to the US, and Finance Minister Limantour.

Rebels capture Acapulco.

NY has a parade of trucks. The article has pictures of 1911 oil trucks, armored bank cars, dump trucks, mail wagons etc., if you’re into that sort of thing.

However, horses were still in big use in commercial deliveries (but losing ground: another article compares the cost per mile and finds autos substantially cheaper), which is doubtless why horse theft is bigger in 1911 New York City than in the Far West.

Germans are planning to build a really, really big dirigible, capable of carrying 200 passengers, with cabins, a promenade, dining saloon, an onboard newspaper, and parachutes for every passenger. They will carry passengers across the Atlantic, which will take 3 days, for a fare of $200.

The McNamara brothers, union officials, are arrested by private detectives for the dynamiting of the LA Times building last October, along with one Ortie E. McGonigle, which sounds like the name of a W.C. Fields character. A rather large quantity of dynamite was found as well.

(Update: no fun: later editions correct the name to Ortie McManigle.)

The lower house of the Colorado Legislature votes to ban cigarettes.

Bomb bomb bomb, bomb Libya

McCain of Arabia spent several hours in Libya and was therefore able to declare, “I have met these brave fighters and they are not Al Qaida.” So that settles that.

None of these people are Al Qaida

However, if the US doesn’t step up the military intervention, “I do worry that if there is a stalemate here, that it could open the door to radical Islamic fundamentalism.” So they’re not Al Qaida but if they become Al Qaida it’ll be Obama’s fault for not dropping enough bombs. Okay then.

Today -100: April 22, 1911: Of the helplessness of the American potato

NY Gov. Dix explains that he appointed William Buchanan as a delegate to the 3rd National Peace Congress because he had been active in the peace movement in the past. But not the recent past, since, it turns out, he’s been dead for two years. But, to be fair, quite peaceful.

The Mexican government responds to Madero’s demand for Díaz’s resignation by breaking off negotiations.

The Canadian Reciprocity Bill passes the House, you will be delighted to hear, 264-89. Though this was the biggest item on Taft’s to do list for 1911, the Republicans voted against it 78-67. My favorite sentence in the article: “Mr. Nelson tried to get the other side to recognize the helplessness of the American potato against Canadian competition.”

Today -100: April 21, 1911: Of ultimata, lynchings, and retaliations

Francisco Madero gives President-for-Not-Very-Long Díaz 24 hours to resign, or he will attack Juarez.

Sen. William Stone (D-Missouri) introduces a resolution, in the badly chosen words of the NY Times, “authorizing the President, if necessary, to cross the frontier and by force guarantee the protection of American lives and property”. Let’s all take a moment to imagine President Taft waddling across the border to by force guarantee the protection of American lives and property. Other senators objected that this resolution would be tantamount to a declaration of war. It is tabled for now.

A black man who shot a white man in a pool room in Livermore, Kentucky, is lynched in the opera house (which the marshal had thought more defensible than the jail house). 50 men shot him from the orchestra pit.

The Republican-dominated Rhode Island Legislature refuses to appropriate money for a new science hall at RI State College in retaliation for the role some of its professors took in the 1910 election working for the Democrats, who took control of the South Kingstown city council.

Today -100: April 20, 1911: Of church & state, and disputes at the border

Portugal will issue a decree for the separation of church and state. Priests will be off the government payroll and will be legally allowed to marry.

Mexican President-for-Now Díaz writes, and leaks (I’m not sure if he ever officially sent it), a reply to Washington, denying any responsibility for the stray gunfire during the fight for Agua Prieta that killed Americans in Douglas, AZ. He casts blame on the rebels and on Americans fighting on the rebel side, and he counter-charges various violations of neutrality, saying that US soldiers disarmed some Mexican soldiers and turned over their weapons to the rebels and that a Federal lieut. was wounded by a shot from the American Custom House. He also says that the citizens of Douglas who were shot had only themselves to blame for being lookie-loos.

Perspective

Obama held an Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House, because he’s totally not a Muslim.

EVERYONE AGREES THAT JESUS’S ATTEMPT TO FOLLOW-UP ON THE LOAVES & FISHES THING WAS REALLY LAME: “We all live in the hustle and bustle of our work. ... The inbox keeps on accumulating.”

REMINDERS LIKE LISTENING TO JOE BIDEN’S STORIES ABOUT HOW HE USED TO RIDE THE TRAIN: “we must always make sure that we are keeping things in perspective. ... But nothing beats scripture and the reminder of the eternal.”

WHAT HE PRAYS FOR: “I pray that our time here this morning will strengthen us, both individually as believers and as Americans.” So he’s praying for the success of the prayer breakfast? And does he then pray for the success of his prayer for the success of the prayer breakfast?


WHAT WE ARE REMINDED OF: “we are reminded that there’s something about the resurrection -- something about the resurrection of our savior, Jesus Christ, that puts everything else in perspective.” CONTEST: Exactly what does the “resurrection” of “our savior” Jesus Christ put into perspective for Obama?

Today -100: April 19, 1911: Of retreats and vivisection

The Mexican government accepts Washington’s demand that both sides in the civil war arrange themselves so that bullets in the civil war stop crossing the border. Or to put it another way, they are willing to accept the establishment of a neutral zone that just happens to favor them in Agua Prieta and Juarez.

Taft has been making it clear that he will not order troops to cross into Mexico without explicit instructions from Congress, as he believes, correctly but almost uniquely among presidents, the Constitution requires.

The rebels evacuate Agua Prieta; they’d won all the battles but ran out of ammo. They blame US customs and secret service agents for seizing 100,000 rounds of ammunition shipped to them on the Arizona side of the border. The rebels object strongly to this action, noting (correctly) that arms sales to Mexican rebels do not violate US law. However, the former commander-in-chief of the rebels in the city, the guy who fled to the US yesterday, blames the defeat on rebels who drank up all the booze in the city.

The NYT has a pro-vivisection editorial.

Today -100: April 18, 1911: Of surrenders, extending racism, and beverages in the Philippines

The battle for Agua Prieta, on the US-Mexican border, continues, with federal attempts to recapture the town from the rebels being fought off, although at one point the rebel commander surrendered himself – to the Americans. Both sides ignored the American demand that they not fire any bullets that might cross the border, and 7 people in Douglas, AZ are wounded.

Rep. Everis Hayes (R-CA) introduces a bill to extend all existing laws excluding Chinese immigrants to “Japanese, Koreans, Tartars, Malays, Afghans, East Indians, Lascars, Hindus, and all other persons of the Mongolian or Asiatic race”.

A US cavalry officer in the Philippines is killed by someone described by the NYT correspondent as “a Moro fanatic, who, crazed with religious passion, ran amuck, thirsting for the blood of a Christian.” There will be more of this.

Today -100: April 17, 1911: Of champagne rioters, Easter riots, and Mormons

The US instructs the Mexican federals and the insurgents that in the future they must so arrange their battles that bullets not cross the border.

The Mexican government is calling for volunteers to join the army for six months. The Times notes that in addition to the regular army, there are private ones maintained by mine owners, rich estate owners and the like.

Headline of the Day -100: “Champagne Rioters Calm.”

Another nicely incongruous headline: “Easter Worshippers Riot.” In Chicopee, Mass., the Polish organizations traditionally march to church on Easter, with brass bands and everything. The priest disapproves of both the brass bands and the everything and cancelled the 5:00 Easter Mass, locking the church. So there was an actual Easter riot, with knives drawn.

Other Easter news: “Easter Paraders See Suicide’s Body.”

Another headline: “Draws Royal Flush; Dies.; Chicago Girl Falls Lifeless from Her Chair in a Poker Game.”

An anti-Mormon mob in Birkenhead, England, attacks the Mormon meeting house and demands that Mormon missionaries leave town (there is a bit of a moral panic going on in the UK over Mormons coming to Britain to Steal Our Women).

Quote of the Day

Some dude in Misurata: “I jumped onto the ground when the explosions started. My friend did not. His head came off.”

Today -100: April 16, 1911: Of sane progressives, champagne riots, and scary cats

Teddy Roosevelt praises LaFollette and his followers’ work in Wisconsin: “The progressive movement has been sane in Wisconsin.”

Headline of the Day -100: “More Champagne Riots.” Classy. Actually, riots in the Champagne region of France, which have been going on for days. Something about the legal delimitation of the Champagne region. Whatever. Lots of wine workers running around destroying the property of wine growers and wine merchants, rumors of anarchist involvement.

Other Headline of the Day -100: “Cats Scare Chicago.” The Health Dept wants to kill stray cats.

Today -100: April 15, 1911: Of sacrilege, the 14th Amendment, and publicity

Pennsylvania bans sacrilegious plays, movies, operas or vaudeville.

British marines land to protect a Baja California town from an insurrecto attack (which fails to materialize).

The insurrectos now control the city of Agua Prieta, and will install there a provisional government for the state of Sonora.

Rep. Thomas Hardwick (D-Georgia) introduces a bill to repeal the 14th Amendment, specifically the provisions (which as far as I know have never been used) to punish states that disfranchise (black) adult males.

The Publicity Bill, requiring reporting and publication of campaign contributions before general elections, passes the House 302-0. The Senate version, though, was amended to postpone publication until after the election. The Republicans failed to win an amendment to include primaries and other nomination processes, which means Democrats in the one-party South are effectively not covered by the bill.

It is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Qaddafi in power

Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy have written an op-ed piece for the International Herald Tribune, The Times of London and Le Figaro about Justin Bieber Libya.

ROCKETS IN ONE PLACE AND A MEDIEVAL SIEGE IN ANOTHER? IS LIBYA EXPERIENCING SOME SORT OF BREAKDOWN IN THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM? “But the people of Libya are still suffering terrible horrors at Qaddafi’s hands each and every day. His rockets and shells rained down on defenseless civilians in Ajdabiya. The city of Misurata is enduring a medieval siege”. And it was American, British and French companies that sold Qaddafi all those rockets and giant catapults.

OMG, THERE IS A BREAKDOWN IN THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM! AND IT MAY STOP FUNCTIONING ALTOGETHER! The UN mandate “is not to remove Qaddafi by force. But it is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Qaddafi in power.”

IT IS UNTHINKABLE BECAUSE SUCH A THING HAS NEVER HAPPENED IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF MANKIND. NOT EVER. “It is unthinkable that someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future government.”

BUT NOT FAILED PARIAHS. “Furthermore, it would condemn Libya to being not only a pariah state, but a failed state too.” Did you know that “pariah” comes from a Tamil word for members of a hereditary caste of people who played drums at festivals and were therefore banned from religious processions, rather like Ringo Starr?

WHEN DID HE ACTUALLY HAVE THAT “CONSENT” AND IN WHAT FORM DID THE LIBYAN PEOPLE GIVE IT? PEOPLE IN ALL THE DICTATORSHIPS AND HEREDITARY MONARCHIES SUPPORTED BY THE US, FRANCE AND BRITAIN WOULD LIKE TO KNOW, SO THEY CAN MAKE IT CLEAR TO THEM THAT THEY DON’T WANT TO LIVE UNDER DICTATORSHIPS AND HEREDITARY MONARCHIES EITHER: “And because he has lost the consent of his people any deal that leaves him in power would lead to further chaos and lawlessness.”

OR A NEW CAR. WE CAN’T AFFORD A NEW CAR OR A NEW SAFE HAVEN FOR EXTREMISTS. OR THAT BIG-SCREEN TV WE’VE HAD OUR EYE ON. “Neither Europe, the region, or the world can afford a new safe haven for extremists.”

WAR 4EVER! “However, so long as Qaddafi is in power, NATO must maintain its operations so that civilians remain protected and the pressure on the regime builds.” So we don’t have a mandate to remove Qaddafi by force, but we’ll use military operations to build pressure on his regime until he is out of power. I totally see the distinction.

NOT YOU, SAIF! “Then a genuine transition from dictatorship to an inclusive constitutional process can really begin, led by a new generation of leaders.”

MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY: “But it will be the people of Libya, not the U.N., who choose their new constitution, elect their new leaders, and write the next chapter in their history.” Assuming the Libyan space-time continuum can be restored, of course.