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Italians voted this week on several national referenda on Silvio Berlusconi’s policies, put on the ballot by his opponents. Berlusconi’s policy towards the election, therefore, was to tell his supporters not to vote, since referenda fail if they don’t get a 50% turnout (before this week, none had for 16 years), and use his dominance of the state and private media to stifle discussion of the election. But there was a high turnout, and c.94% votes to overturn his plans to build new nuclear plants, privatize water, and give immunity to government officials such as himself who are just too busy to be bothered by corruption trials.
A couple of days ago, Hillary Clinton gave a speech to the African Union in Addis Ababa.
SAY, HILLARY, WHAT TIME IS IT? “Let me begin by saying this is an exciting time for African democracy.”
Indeed, “we do know that too many people in Africa still live under longstanding rulers, men who care too much about the longevity of their reign, and too little about the legacy that should be built for their country’s future.” She did not say how many people in Africa is the right number to still live under longstanding rulers, men who care too much about the longevity of their reign, and too little about the legacy that should be built for their country’s future, but apparently the current number is too many.
The Arab Spring (er, didn’t that lead to a military coup, several bloody crackdowns, and an ongoing civil/international war?) sent a message: “The status quo is broken; the old ways of governing are no longer acceptable; it is time for leaders to lead with accountability, treat their people with dignity, respect their rights, and deliver economic opportunity.” So evidently in the past, until earlier this year, I guess, the old ways of governing were perfectly acceptable and it was not time for leaders to lead with accountability, treat their people with dignity, respect their rights, and deliver economic opportunity.
The Arab Spring “has particular significance for leaders in Africa and elsewhere who hold on to power at all costs, who suppress dissent, who enrich themselves and their supporters at the expense of their own people. To those leaders our message must be clear: Rise to this historic occasion; show leadership by embracing a true path that honors your people’s aspirations; create a future that your young people will believe in, defend, and help build.” So evidently democracy will come about by leaders who hitherto have held on to power at all costs, suppressed dissent and enriched themselves and their supporters at the expense of their own people, changing their minds and “showing leadership.” Maybe it’s me, but I’m wondering if we haven’t seen quite enough leadership from people who have held on to power at all costs, suppressed dissent and enriched themselves and their supporters at the expense of their own people.
NOT THAT IT’S A CONTEST OR ANYTHING: “The women of Africa are the hardest working women in the world.”
WELL, NOT THE TIDE OF LIBYAN HISTORY: “There is little question that the kind of activities that, unfortunately, have affected the Libyan people for more than 40 years run against the tide of history.” I don’t think the threat of being “against the tide of history” or “on the wrong side of history,” as she says elsewhere in the speech, is one that really has ever had anyone quaking in their boots. All this “history” talk is the 21st century version of saying that Africans are at a more primitive stage of civilization.
HAS HE CHECKED BEHIND THE SOFA CUSHIONS? “But it has become clearer by the day that [Qaddafi] has lost his legitimacy to rule, and we are long past time when he can or should remain in power.” She does not say when he lost his legitimacy to rule or when and how he acquired that legitimacy in the first place. She says that the AU nations should expel Qaddafi’s diplomats and “increase contact and support for the Transitional National Council.” Maybe the council found the legitimacy that Qaddafi so carelessly lost. Or maybe not, since Clinton doesn’t suggest that African nations recognize it as Libya’s one and true government.
Awkward.
WHAT HILLARY HAS NEVER MET: “We welcome to our shores immigrants from every country represented here... But I have never met an immigrant from Africa who has not said he or she wished they could have done the very same in their own country, among their own people, close to their family, eating the food, smelling the flowers, seeing the sights that are in their blood. I want to see that for Africa, where people are coming home to Africa because this is where opportunity for the future resides.” I believe she’s saying that she wants Obama to go back to Kenya and let her be president.
Oh, and “seeing the sights that are in their blood”? Unless she’s talking about something involving Raquel Welch in a miniaturized submarine, that comes across just a bit racist.
And then she left early, because of a volcano in Eritrea. Volcanoes always seem to be chasing Obama officials out of countries lately, don’t they?
At the commencement ceremony at Fisk University, a negro college, a letter from President Taft is read: “I am not one of those who believe that it is well to educate the mass of negroes with academic or university education.” He did know he was writing to a university, didn’t he? And one with negro students at that? “On the contrary, I am firmly convinced that the hope of the negro is in his industrial education throughout the South, and in teaching him to be a better farmer, a better carpenter, a better machinist, and a better blacksmith than he is now; and to make more blacksmiths and more good farmers than there now are among the negroes. But I have studied the matter considerably, and have also become convinced that it is necessary to have a few...” Just a few, mind... “...high-class negro universities for those who are to be the leaders of the race and who are to figure prominently in a professional way – their ministers, their physicians, their lawyers, and their teachers – because we have got to treat the race as distinct from the white.” He goes on to praise the quality of Fisk, which “is proved not only by an examination of its college statistics, but by the testimony of the best white men in the community where it exercises its influence.” Well, if the best white men in the community say so...
Teddy Roosevelt also sent a letter. He also said that more negroes needed industrial training than higher ed but that “a certain proportion of the race” should have the latter, but he somehow managed to say it without being such a condescending prick.
One possible reason the Mexican military performed so poorly against the rebels becomes clear from an inspection of army supplies at Juarez: really crap government-manufactured ammunition, containing so little powder that it couldn’t fire any distance at all. The stuff the rebels had, smuggled in from the US, was much better. Also, the federales had 200 80mm shells but 70mm mortars.
Headline of the Day -100: “Cat Hatches Chickens.” It must be true: a Baptist Sunday-school teacher in New Jersey says so. He will send the cat and her four chicks to President Taft as soon as they are old enough to travel, although what Taft is supposed to do with these miraculous creatures, I have no idea.
Reading further, I see that the cat is named Barney. I begin to distrust this Sunday-school teacher’s understanding of biology.
Portugal is preparing for an expected invasion by monarchists.
Headline of the Day -100: “Anti-Semites Beaten.” Sadly, not literally. In Austrian parliamentary elections.
Whatever else you can say about tonight’s Republican debate, Neil Patrick Harris did a terrific job of hosting.
Asked about Pawlenty’s claim he could get 5% economic growth, Santorum says he won’t comment on “4% or 5%”, showing the proper Republican dismissiveness of “numbers.”
T-Paw: if China, Brazil can have 5% growth, so can we!
Ron Paul: Why not 15%!
T-Paw refuses to apologize for coining “ObamneyCare™.” But he was really embarrassed at being asked to repeat to Romney’s face the stuff he’s been saying about him behind his back.
T-Paw calls Obama a “declinist.”
Gingrich: if government can set rules for health care, it can set rules for everything in your life, like setting a lifetime cap on wives.
Bachmann says she wants to announce here tonight that Obama will be a One. Term. President.
“De-tax”? Is that a word, Ron Paul?
T-Paw is not for being a chump (something about free trade).
Bachmann: the EPA should really be renamed the Job Killing Organization of America (JKOA).
Gingrich: “right-to-work” states are telling the other states, “Don’t be stupid.”
Bachmann says she fought TARP behind closed doors. Possibly the doors of her padded cell.
Who will support the manned space program? T-Paw kind of. Gingrich wants a decentralized space program, and cut out the bureaucracy. Because we built the Trans-Continental Railroad without a National Department of Railroads.
Mittens: we shouldn’t be asking what parts of the federal government to cut, we should be asking what parts to keep. Isn’t that basically the same question?
Cain says something about throwing our grandchildren in wheelchairs off a bridge. Really, unless he’s talking about setting a national no-anchovy-toppings policy, I don’t really care what Herman Cain has to say.
And he wants us to be just like Pinochet’s Chile, or something.
Santorum: you approach decisions using faith and reason, and if your faith is pure and your reason is right, you’ll come to the same place. Although if that place is your dining room and there’s a fetus on the table, there’s a strong possibility something has gone badly wrong with your faith, your reason, or both.
Cain: when I said I wouldn’t appoint Muslims to my cabinet, I meant the ones trying to kill us. By putting anchovies on our pizzas.
Gingrich says he wouldn’t appoint people not willing to be loyal to the United States. “We did this in dealing with the Nazis, and we did this in dealing with the Communists, and it was controversial both times”. Always nice to have a shout-out to Joseph McCarthy, although I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about with the Nazis.
Governor Romney, spicy wings or mild? Spicy (but ask him again tomorrow, and he’ll say mild). Really, John King asked that question.
Who supports a federal Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage? T-Paw, Mittens, Gingrich, Santorum, Bachmann do, the rest would leave it to the states. Paul says government should be out of the business of giving marriage licenses, it should be up to the church. Atheists, you’re shit out of luck.
Overturn Obama’s repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Pawlenty would leave it up to the service chiefs. Paul: rights don’t come in groups, we shouldn’t have gay rights. Romney fails to answer. Gingrich would listen to the commanders, whose lives are at risk. Bachmann: overturn after listening to the chiefs. Santorum: repeal the repeal.
Whenever some random New Hampshirehoovian asks a question on the big screen, Bachmann responds while looking at the screen and not at the camera, not having learned anything from her State of the Union response.
If there’s one thing Bachmann really wants you to take away from this debate, judging by the number of times she’s brought it up, it’s that she’s fostered 23 children.
Should a 5-year-old illegal immigrant be turned away from a hospital emergency room? Ron Paul says something about no mandates on hospitals, which I take to mean yes. But the Catholic Church should be allowed to take care of him.
T-Paw, Coke or Pepsi? Coke.
Romney: every one of these candidates would be a better president than Obama. Obama doesn’t have a foreign policy.
No one willing to say which of the other candidates they’d choose as their running mate. Ron Paul doesn’t even know what their views on the Federal Reserve are.
Gingrich: “we don’t have even today the intelligence to know what we’re doing.” Okay, he’s talking about Libya here, but it does seem to sum things up nicely.
Obama says that if he were Anthony Weiner, “I would resign,” because “When you get to the point where, because of various personal distractions, you can’t serve as effectively as you need to, at the time when people are worrying about jobs, and their mortgages, and paying the bills — then you should probably step back.”
Because if there’s one thing Obama hates, it’s politicians who can’t serve as effectively as they need to.
The secretary of state explains that the reason the US hasn’t recognized the post-monarchy republic in Portugal is because... Portugal hasn’t asked.
A NYT editorial refers to a mini-controversy I must have missed because I’ve been avoiding any story about the stalled tariff reciprocity treaty with Canada. Some people (the Times does not say which people) have criticized Taft for pushing the treaty in speeches. They insist that the only public statements a president is authorized by the Constitution to make are State of the Union addresses, and anything else is an improper attempt to coerce Congress.
The Senate votes 64-24 for a constitutional amendment for the popular election of senators. A provision (already rejected by the House) giving supervision of those elections to the federal government passes after a tie is broken by the vice president. Only one Democrat voted for it (because it would prevent D’s in the South disfranchising black voters); 5 “progressive” Republicans, including LaFollette, voted with them.
The Chinese government has reversed its decision to allow men to cut off their queues (those pigtails) – or, in an unfortunate NYT typo, their “pueues.” I’m not sure what one of those is, but I’m pretty sure you don’t want to cut it off.
South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease has been trying to have Atlanta lawyer Thomas Felder indicted for bribery (the governor of Georgia will later refuse to extradite Felder, saying there is no evidence against him). Felder says Blease is coming after him to cover up having taken bribes from liquor houses when he was a state senator, and has challenged Blease to either bring a libel suit against him or challenge him to a duel. Whichever. However, Blease “is forbidden by his oath of office to participate in duels” (literally??) so a W.P. Beard, who seems to be just an ordinary citizen, has offered to duel in the governor’s place.
Towards the end of the Mexican Revolution, there was a massacre of 300 or so Chinese in Torreon. The story going around is that after the rebels took the town, they looted a courtroom, taking some bottles of cognac which were actually evidence from a trial some years before for an attempted mass poisoning at a banquet. They took the bottles to a Chinese restaurant, drank them, and... you get the idea.
Your archaic vocabulary word of the day: yeggman, as in the NYT headline “Yeggmen Blow Up a Town.” Safecrackers – yeggmen – dynamited a post office safe in French Creek, West Virginia, starting a fire that burned down most of the town (which had no fire dept). The yeggmen – I really like that word – got away with about $600 in cash and stamps.
Some French guys have invented the telephone answering machine, a device to record voice messages on phonograph records. Previously, it was only possible to record voices directly, not over phone wires.
Leonard Stern, creator of Mad Libs, died this week, just before the release of the Sarah Palin emails. Coincidence? Conspiracy? Discuss.
Pope Benny and Joe Biden met at the Vatican last week to discuss the relative advantages of pope-mobiles versus Amtrak, or something (no transcript was or will be released – it’s all very mysterious). What do you think they said?
(Did you know that Biden is the first Catholic vice president of the United States?)
Carrie Nation, “saloon smasher” extraordinaire, dies. She made a living off her notoriety by selling souvenir hatchets.
Possibly in Ms Nation’s honor, temperance advocate Tillie McGowan breaks up a picnic in Atchison, Kansas, at which beer was being served, chasing one of the picnickers into the Missouri River with a rifle.
Mexico will soon hold a convention of “the political party which has emanated from the revolution” to select a presidential candidate for the October elections. Since another name for “the political party which has emanated from the revolution” is Maderist, I venture to predict that its candidate will be Francisco Madero Jr.
Meanwhile, Madero refuses to attend a bull fight, objecting to the fact that he had been advertised as one of the spectators.
China demands a $10 million indemnity for the massacre of some of its citizens during the Mexican Revolution and for their property losses.
Possibly breaking new grounds in racism, a Cherokee state senator in Oklahoma is leading a fight against the appointment by Washington of a negro assistant supervisor of Indian schools for the Five Civilized Tribes. (A couple of days later the White House claimed that the announcement of the appointment was mistaken.)
Not breaking new grounds in racism at all, several wealthy white planters in Conecuh County, Alabama are arrested for holding their farm laborers in conditions of peonage.
Literally breaking new ground, a German aviator attempting to set an altitude record with a passenger instead falls 6,650 feet to his death. Which, to be fair, was probably a record.
Headline of the Day -100: “Suicide With Feather Bed.” Just what it sounds like: she suffocated herself to death. With a feather bed.
At his hearings to be ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker admitted that “We’re not out to clearly create a shining city on a hill. That’s not going to happen.” So what is his definition of success? “Good-enough governance: Governance that is good enough to ensure that the country doesn’t degenerate back into a safe haven for al-Qaeda.”
The handful of Al Qaida who enjoyed safe haven in Afghanistan didn’t do any particular harm to the Afghan people, so Crocker is suggesting that the Afghans are basically irrelevant to the purpose of the war in Afghanistan, as far as the US is concerned. “Good enough for wogs,” he might as well have said.
NYT headline: “U.S. Is Intensifying a Secret Campaign of Yemen Airstrikes.” I’m pretty sure the Yemenis realize they’re being bombed, so this is no more a secret campaign than the “secret” bombing of Cambodia.
Liberty County (TX) Sheriff Capt. Rex Evans says that just because the tip that there were dozens of bodies buried on a farm came from a “psychic” did not make it any less valid. Er, yes it did.
A Mini. And the Mini’s driving some sort of car.
Big earthquake in Mexico, 1,300 killed.
The new Mexican government is sending 1,500 to 2,000 troops to suppress the socialist utopia in Baja. It’s sending them by train via Los Angeles and San Diego. They will be disarmed while on the Arizona-to-San Diego portion of the trip.
The archbishop of Paris refuses to allow the late Prime Minister of France Maurice Rouvier a Catholic burial: the law separating church & state was passed during his premiership.
Teddy Roosevelt says he is definitely, absolutely not running for president in 1912 and it would be a “calamity” if he were nominated, and “there will be no more statements regarding the matter.” So I guess that settles that.
The lower house of the Connecticut Legislature defeats women’s suffrage for municipal elections 168 to 49. It had passed the state Senate. Evidently it’s a little game in Connecticut: one house passes women’s suffrage, the other defeats it.
NYT: “Henry L. Stimson, the new Secretary of War, is fast acclimating himself to the atmosphere of the army. Accompanied by Gen. Leonard Wood, Chief of Staff, he rode on horseback to-day from Fort Myer, VA., to the drill camp of the Engineer Corps...” In 1911 “acclimating yourself to the atmosphere of the army” still meant riding a horse.
Headline of the Day -100: “Made Old Senators Gasp.” NY state senators were aghast when a young senator questioned a $9,000 earmark for his district that he hadn’t even asked for and which he said wasn’t needed. One senator suggested a monument be erected to the young senator, while another said that not accepting an appropriation was “little short of treason.” The treasonous senator? Franklin D. Roosevelt.
I admit I was a little excited to see in the NYT Index that there was a letter to the paper headlined “Crude expletives.” Imagine my disappointment that the writer was complaining about people who sprinkle conversations with “Is that so?”
Sen. Joseph Weldon Bailey (D-TX), at a gathering of Confederate veterans celebrating Jefferson Davis’s birthday, says “The truth of history was with the Confederate people. ... If the Southern people believed they could not remain in the Union with honor and safety, they had a right to secede.” The guest of honor was Jeff Davis’s old negro “body servant,” who is the only person who knows where the seal of the Confederate States is now, and he ain’t telling.
Rick Santorum entered the presidential race today, just in time to be cockblocked by Anthony Weiner. His email says, “I have stood up for family, faith, fetuses, and freedom.” I may have added one of those.
At his announcement, he talked about how his grandfather emigrated from fascist Italy, where everyone referred to him as “il mix spumeggiante di materia fecale lubrificante e che a volte è il sottoprodotto del sesso anale,” and came to the United States so he could achieve the American dream of working down a Pennsylvania coal mine until he was 72.
In Obama’s America, Little Ricky says, “Every single American will be hooked to the government with an IV.” I dunno, sounds better than working down a mine until you’re 72. I mean, if that’s the choice.
At Normandy, (today’s D-Day +67), evidently, “Those Americans risked everything so they could make that decision on their health care plan.”
George Stephanopoulos asked Santorum if Sarah Palin was right about Paul Revere. He refused to comment.
Maryland recently introduced various measures to disfranchise negroes in local elections, including property qualifications and a grandfather clause. These were ruled unconstitutional by the federal district court. The state is appealing, but the new three-day registration period began today, and there are no registers (registrars) willing to do the work, since whatever they do they would find themselves either violating the US constitution or committing an infraction under the state law, which penalizes registers who register more than 6 negroes.
President Taft orders that Col. Joseph Garrard, commander of the cavalry post at Fort Myer, be reprimanded for opposing the promotion of a private because he is Jewish.
Sarah Palin’s national tour somehow took her into an interview on Fox News Sunday (oddly enough, she was in Arizona. That bus sure does get around). Note that the Fox transcript isn’t very good.
SOMEONE TAUGHT HER THE PHRASE “QUANTITATIVE EASING.” IF SOMEONE ASKED HER TO DEFINE “QUANTITATIVE EASING,” YOUTUBE WOULD EXPLODE: “And you add, too, the fact that this quantitative easing, one and two, hasn’t worked and we’re talking about Q.E. 3 already and the devalued dollar is an addition to this problem.”
SO THE UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS WERE “SKEWED” BY PEOPLE BEING HIRED? “The month of April was tough, too. There were jobs added to the marketplace, Chris, but remember, that was McDonald’s out there with their big push to hire 50,000-some people. So, I think there were some numbers skewed last month, too.”
THOUGH OBVIOUSLY NOT AS NOBLE AS QUITTING HALFWAY THROUGH YOUR TERM: “And it’s very noble of President Obama to want to stay at the helm and maybe go down with this sinking ship.”
CROWDING OUT? “What President Palin would do is cut the federal budget, making sure that we’re crowding out private sector investment.”
SO THE ONLY THING THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD SPEND ITS INCOME ON IS SERVICING THE DEBT? “We rake in $58 billion a day, our federal government, via payroll taxes and or other revenue sources. If we prioritize and took that $68 billion a day and service our debt, we don’t have to raise that debt ceiling.”
“If I were in Congress, though, I would be a ‘no’ vote to raising that debt ceiling. I would send that message...” By ringing those bells and sending those warning shots, just like Paul Revere. “...that it is failed leadership in the White House and with our elected officials when they have allowed to us to get this breaking point, if you will, that Moody’s is warning about.” Actually, as Chris Wallace explained to you, Sarah, what Moody’s is warning about is Congress doing what you said you would do.
She’s “very frustrated” with the “spin” that Paul Ryan is trying to eliminate Medicare. “Now, what’s going to do away with Medicare is if we keep going down the road that we’re on. But Obama evidently wants us to go down because we will have a bankrupt Medicare system.” She does not explain why Obama wants to bankrupt Medicare.
On Afghanistan, it’s all up to David Petraeus: “Now, I have great faith in Petraeus and he -- his folks with boots on the ground and on the front lines, I trust that Petraeus will know of this timeline that makes most sense for America’s interest to be met in Afghanistan.” Four invocations of Saint David. Who is retiring in September.
TO PERHAPS WANT US THERE: “Take Afghanistan, conditions certainly have changed even in this last week or two when President Karzai comes out and acts like the host nation to perhaps want us there, or NATO. NATO, as we help lead NATO, we are still concerned about civilians and making sure that civilian casualties are not part of any kind of strategy. And yet, that kind of get thrown back in our face...” Don’t you hate it when they throw our killing civilians back in our face? “...and there -- it sounds like a message being sent to America...” Possibly by ringing those bells and sending those warning shots, just like Paul Revere. “...and to NATO today by President Karzai that perhaps we’re not wanted there.” And if there’s one thing Sarah Palin hates, it’s people who go where they’re not wanted.
“Yes, those two factors, Chris, that you mention have got to be considered and revaluated. ‘A,’ the host nation ability to understand what it is that we are trying to do for them and with them in their nation; and the cost of war. Three wars that we’re going engaged in today and our country nearing bankruptcy, we have to rethink everything that we’re doing with foreign aid and with foreign intervention. We have got to make sure that it’s America’s interest first being met in each one of these nations.” So she’s complaining about Afghanistan’s “ability to understand” what we’re trying to do “for them and with them,” which she says is putting America’s interest first. What’s so difficult to understand about that, Afghanistan?
She is not on “some publicity tour,” she says in this umpteenth interview on her non-publicity tour. “I’m publicizing Americana and our foundation and how important it is that we learn about our past and our challenges and victories throughout American history, so that we can successfully proceed forward -- very heady days, rough waters ahead of us, Chris. We need to make sure that we have a strong grasp of our foundational victories so we can move forward.” Prepare to have your grasp of our foundational victories strengthened:
You know what? I didn’t mess up about Paul Revere. Here is what Paul Revere did. He warned the Americans that the British were coming, the British were coming, and they were going to try take our arms and we got to make sure that we were protecting ourselves and shoring up all of ammunitions and our firearms so that they couldn’t take it. But remember that the British had already been there, many soldiers for seven years in that area. And part of Paul Revere’s ride -- and it wasn’t just one ride -- he was a courier, he was a messenger. Part of his ride was to warn the British that we’re already there. That, hey, you’re not going to succeed. You’re not going to take American arms. You are not going to beat our own well-armed persons, individual, private militia that we have. He did warn the British. And in a shout-out, gotcha type of question that was asked of me, I answered candidly. And I know my American history.
And now, so do we all.
(The gotcha type of question in question: “What have you been doing during your visit to Boston?”)
SHE MEANT TO RUN THEM OVER WITH HER BUS: “I apologize if I stepped on any -- any of that PR that Mitt Romney needed or wanted that day. I do sincerely apologize. I didn’t mean to step on anybody’s toes.”
Striking Pennsylvania Railroad workers exchange gunfire with scabs.
Judson Harmon, Democratic governor of Ohio, will run for president in 1912. Judson fever... catch it!
Dirty-Sounding-But-Not-Really-Dirty Headline of the Day -100: “Whirled to Death in Shafting.” Actually a horrible cement-related death.
Texas Governor Oscar Branch Colquitt will deliver a series of anti-prohibition speeches. He has received so many death threats (one involving dynamite) that he will travel with a body guard.
Barack Obama visited a Chrysler plant in Toledo, and I couldn’t even get past the opening warming-up-the-crowd remarks, because I kept making the same stupid joke:
THAT’S WHAT ANTHONY WEINER SAYS ABOUT HIS PENIS: “I just want you to know that I stopped by Rudy’s -- (laughter) -- had two hot dogs, two chili dogs with onions.”
THAT’S WHAT ANTHONY WEINER SAYS ABOUT HIS PENIS: “I just took a short tour of the plant and watched some of you putting the finishing touches on the Wrangler.”
THAT’S WHAT ANTHONY WEINER SAYS ABOUT HIS PENIS: “And this plant indirectly supports hundreds of other jobs right here in Toledo. After all, without you, who’d eat at Chet’s or Inky’s or Rudy’s? Or who’d buy all those cold ones at Zinger’s? This guy right here? That’s the Zinger crew right there.”
I think it’s time for this member (yeah, yeah, I said member) of the Zinger crew to go lie down.
...And take a nap! A nap is why I’m going to go lie down! And not for any other reason!!
Dirty-Sounding-But-Not-Really-Dirty Headline of the Day -100: “M’Aneny Asks Dix to Withdraw Cram.”
The cost of telephone calls in 1911 NYC: the Public Service Commission has ordered reductions in rates. Henceforth calls from Manhattan to Brooklyn will cost 5 for 5 minutes or less (reduced from 10 ), and those from Manhattan to Long Island will be 10 , down from 15 .
An American-French syndicate headed by A. E. Spriggs, the former lieutenant governor of Montana, now owns Guatemala. That is, it has been granted rights to the country’s entire mineral resources (for which it will pay the Guatemalan government 10% of the profits), exclusive rights to use waterways, and rights to build roads, railways, bridges, etc, to operate telephone and telegraph lines, electric plants and any other public utilities it sees fit, to sell farm products, operate banks and newspapers, etc etc.
Today, Twitt Romney announced for the presidency at a family farm, “where he invited supporters and media to a ‘Cookout With Mitt and Ann.’”
Meanwhile, Anthony Weiner invited supporters and media to a... oh, you’re way ahead of me, aren’t you?
The Women’s Christian Temperance Union tries to get the principal of the Frances Willard Public School in Chicago, which is named after the WCTU founder, fired for saying that “a respectable saloon keeper is just as respectable as a respectable banker.” They say that for Ms Reed to keep her job would be “an insult directed at the organization and at womanhood in general.” The school board does not fire her, but does direct that in future principals and teachers should “refrain from making public any comparison likely to incur ill-will or hatred between classes of citizens as regards religion, race, nationality, or occupation.”
Harriet Tubman, aged 89, is destitute and has to enter a home for old black people that was founded a few years before with donations from Tubman herself.
The NY Legislature passes a bill banning plays (including those performed privately) from having “a living character representing the Deity.”
The Supreme Court rules 8-0 that Abdullah al-Kidd can’t sue then-Attorney General John Ashcroft for misusing the material witness statute to imprison him for reasons that had nothing to do with him being a material witness to anything.
In a concurring opinion, Sotomayor wrote, “Nothing in the majority’s opinion today should be read as placing this court’s imprimatur on the actions taken by the government against al-Kidd.”
Unless you count making it impossible for him to receive any sort of redress for those actions, and doing nothing that would prevent governments in the future locking up anyone they want to without evidence or trial.
Former-President-For-Life Porfirio Díaz gets on a boat and takes his leave of Mexico. His final words on shore: “I shall die in Mexico,” adding, “or, you know, maybe France. Whatever.” In a little speech before that to some loyalist soldiers, he said that the new government would be forced to use his methods – repression, violence, general assholery, that sort of thing – to maintain peace. One of those soldiers was Gen. Victoriano Huerta, so we know one person at least took Díaz’s words to heart.
Eek. NYT Index Typo of the Day: “WOMEN FIGHT SUFFRAGE BILL; Ask Connecticut mouse to Reject One Passed by Senate.”
Headline of the Day -100: “The Titanic Launched.”
Someone has blown up the presidential palace (and a fort) in Nicaragua, killing over 100 people. Believed to be a plot by supporters of former prez Estrada.
The Commissioner of Pensions rules that Louise Bliss is not a veteran and did not, as she has often claimed, dress as a man and fight in the Civil War. So no pension for her.
Woodrow Wilson, in North Carolina, when asked about a possible presidential run, says “It is too far off to talk about.”
A Mexican is lynched in Barstow, Texas for shouting “Viva Díaz!” during a celebration of the success of the Revolution.
Ray Harroun wins the first Indianapolis 500, driving a Marmon Wasp (the very one pictured below), winning around $15,000. He drove the 500 miles at an average speed of 74 mph. Harroun’s great innovation, used here for the first time in an automobile, was the rear-view mirror; his was the only car not to have a mechanic passenger to keep a watch on the road behind. There was one fatality, the driver of a car whose front wheels fell off and was thrown 20 feet – no one had invented the seat belt.
It was Memorial Day, which in those days was of course strictly about the Civil War (which I notice the NYT doesn’t initial cap). Compare and contrast: President Taft gave a speech at Arlington arguing that the US should “strain ever nerve... to avoid war in the future.” And just as Americans as individuals have (mostly) “progressed” away from fighting duels over insults to their honor, so nations should “refuse to go to war for an insult” and instead “submit to the arbitrament of a peaceful tribunal”. Teddy Roosevelt, on the other hand, addressing Civil War veterans at Grant’s Tomb: “I took part in a little war which came after your big war. It was all the war there was, and it was not our fault that there wasn’t war enough to go around.” He doesn’t support arbitration, especially over the Monroe Doctrine or Asiatic immigration, and he does support a big navy: “I don’t want to put myself in the position of having to ask strong nations not to hurt us. I want to make all the stronger nations ask us not to hurt them”.
The king of Sweden denies he’s ever been in a strip club. Which means he’s totally been in a strip club.
Top news on Fox News: “Is Obama Chewing Gum at Joplin Memorial Service?”
From the BBC: “Police in southern Bangladesh say a woman cut off a man’s penis during an alleged attempt to rape her and took it to a police station as evidence.” Said a police spokesmodel: “As far as I am aware, this is the first time that a woman has brought a severed penis to the police station as evidence.”
Also from the Beeb: “Severed Head of Patron Saint of Genital Disease on Sale.” That’s St. Vitalis of Assisi. “He died in 1370, and word of his sanctity soon spread due to reports of numerous miracles performed on those with bladder and genital disorders.” “The Holy Cross Monastery, a Benedictine order in Rostrevor, County Down, did not even know who St Vitalis was, and after an internet search, declined to comment further on the matter of his or anyone else’s severed head.”
I’m conflicted. As fun as it would be to watch Michele Bachmann run for president, to do so she’d have to forego running for the Senate and I was looking forward to her debates with Al Franken.
To be clear, that was a picture of St. Vitalis of Assisi, not St. Michele of Minnesota. Although I understand Ms. Bachmann has also performed numerous miracles on those with bladder and genital disorders.
From the world football scandal I couldn’t care less about but which has been dominating the BBC the last few days: Fifa president Sepp Blatter.
Are we entirely sure that name wasn’t dreamt up by Douglas Adams?
Wikipedia provides us this tidbit about Mr. Blatter: “In the early 1970s, Blatter was elected president of the World Society of Friends of Suspenders, an organisation which tried to stop women replacing suspender belts with pantyhose.”
W.S. Gilbert, of Gilbert & Sullivan, drowns after suffering a heart attack while attempting to save a young woman in a lake. He was 74.
The Supreme Court rules that the Tobacco Trust must be dissolved.
Pope Pius X publishes an encyclical attacking the Portuguese government for suppressing Catholicism.
Coincidentally, no doubt, a monarchist plot against the Portuguese government is discovered, and dispersed by the military.
Headline of the Day -100: “Biplane Strikes Cow.”
The Lake Mohonk peace conference adopts a resolution for an international agreement banning the use of airships in warfare. The NYT agrees.
Dancers Vernon and Irene Castle marry.
At Cornell during Spring Days, it is traditional for the law students to “arrest” people on false charges and extort money from them for fun and profit. One Henry Koch of Brooklyn arrests Governor John A. Dix on a charge of making eyes at the girls. Dix objects, but the arrest is supported Cornell’s president. The “Court of Injustice” fines Dix $1.
The Methodist Church asks Texas Governor Oscar Branch Colquitt to resign because he opposes prohibition. He refuses, saying prohibition is a political issue not a religious one and is not part of the Confession of Faith, so the church should butt out.
To answer a question I asked last week: 2004, Serbia stopped paying Ratko Mladic’s pension in 2004. He wants it reinstated.
Mladic’s son is named Darko. It’s like that family wants to turn out generation after generation of Bond villains.
At the other extreme, this week, on HBO’s movie “Too Big to Fail,” I heard the happiest, funnest name ever: Skip McGee, of Lehman Brothers. Hey, everyone, it’s Skip McGee! they must say every time he walks in a room. Mladic would have turned out very differently if his parents had named him Skip.
William Hurt was pretty good as Henry Paulson but his... face... didn’t quite match up.
Britain and China sign a treaty to end the opium trade by 1917.
An attack on the train taking Porfirio Díaz out of Mexico forever is fought off. Asked why he thought the attack occurred, Francisco Madero said, “Oh, I suppose they did not have much love for him.”
Former President-for-Life Díaz sneaks out of Mexico. He is believed to be headed for Madrid. Madero resigns as self-proclaimed provisional president.
Russia reverses policy, will allow Jews with American passports to enter Russia. I’m not sure why this finally happened now (-100).
Ratko Mladic has finally been arrested. My favorite Mladic stories:
On July 11, 1995, as Serb troops were surrounding Srebrenica, Mladic summoned the Dutch UN commander & officers to watch a pig being killed, and said that’s how he’d treat people like those protected by Dutch peacekeepers.
And he did.
After the massacre, however, he denied that Serb forces had raped Muslims because “we are too picky.”
Does anyone know if the Serb military ever stopped paying his pension? I know they still were 9 years after his war crimes indictment.
The ill-fated Paris-Madrid air race, which kicked off with a plane falling on the French prime minister and killing the war minister, sees what the NYT calls “the first recorded battle of the air”, when an eagle attacks one of the pilots, who shoots at it. It carries off his cap. At least that’s his tall tale (the pilot’s, not the eagle’s), and he’s sticking with it.
Porfirio Díaz resigns. His letter of resignation reads in part: “The Mexican people, who generously covered me with honors, who proclaimed me as their leader during the international war” and so on for a bit, “that same people, Sir, has revolted in armed military bands, stating that my presence in the exercise of the supreme executive power is the cause of this insurrection. I do not know of any fact imputable to me which could have caused this social phenomenon, but permitting, though not admitting, that I may be unwittingly culpable, such a possibility makes me the least able to reason out and decide my own culpability.”
Part of the deal ending the Mexican Revolution (well, this phase of it, but they weren’t to know that) was that Maderists would take charge of half the states. In Coahuila, this has come up against the Legislature, which refuses to vote Venustiano Carranza (the future president of Mexico) in as governor. Madero threatens a coup in the state.
Madero also plans to have his forces cooperate with federals in crushing the socialist utopia established in Baja.
Obama held a press conference in London with huge-foreheaded British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Asked if the US will continue military operations in Libya until Qaddafi is overthrow/killed, Obama said, “we are strongly committed to seeing the job through, making sure that, at minimum, Qaddafi doesn’t have the capacity to send in a bunch of thugs to murder innocent civilians and to threaten them.” That’s the minimum? What’s the maximum? He also opposes an “artificial timeline” for withdrawal. Do you think he hears himself when he comes out with George Bush’s greatest hits like that and is horrified by what he’s become? Me neither.
I don’t think I’ve noticed this before, but Obama seems to have a strong belief in something he calls momentum. He talks here, as he has in the past, about breaking the Taliban’s momentum, and says of Qaddafi, “I believe that we have built enough momentum that as long as we sustain the course that we’re on, that he is ultimately going to step down.” But what does “momentum” mean in practical terms, and how does breaking it or sustaining it actually achieve these miraculous results?
Something similar pops up in a later answer to a question about Netanyahu’s description of the Palestinian demand for a right of return as a “fantasy.” He says that if the Israelis and Palestinians just start talking about future borders and Israeli (but I guess not Palestinian) security, “they can start seeing on the horizon the possibility of a peace deal, they will then be in a position to have a -- what would be a very difficult conversation about refugees and about Jerusalem.” So he’s depending on momentum to roll right through a resolution of those issues.
HE’S THE REMINDERER: “So, as much as it’s important for the United States, as Israel’s closest friend and partner, to remind them of the urgency of achieving peace, I don’t want the Palestinians to forget that they have obligations as well.”
He again says that the Palestinian government “tak[ing] the United Nations route rather than the path of sitting down and talking with the Israelis is a mistake” which “will not achieve their stated goal of achieving a Palestinian state.” First, it’s not an either/or. Second, if it would be so ineffectual, why is he so vehemently opposed to it? He hasn’t actually come out and described any harm that would be done by recognition.
The Mexican interior minister asks Madero for help from the rebel forces to conquer “bandits and thieves.” Madero says no.
Demonstrations in Mexico City because Mubarak Díaz still hasn’t tendered his resignation as expected.
Madero, though still evidently calling himself the provisional president of Mexico, actually plans to let Francisco de la Barra succeed Díaz and organize elections, which Madero of course intends to win “if the people want me.” Catholics are beginning to organize a party to oppose him (Madero “has Protestant leanings,” whatever that means).
(Update: see Executed Today for a typically excellent post on the mother-and-son lynching of Laura and Lawrence Nelson in Okemah, Oklahoma.)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (an anagram of Junta By Inane He-Man)(h/t Dave Barry) gave an address to Congress today. But did he bring a nice coffee cake?
IF THE SECOND PART OF THIS IS TRUE, THAT WOULD JUST BE SO VERY SAD: “Israel has no better friend than America, and America has no better friend than Israel.”
WHEN? WHEN HAVE WE STOOD TOGETHER TO DEFEND DEMOCRACY OR ADVANCE PEACE? WHEN? “We stand together to defend democracy. We stand together to advance peace. We stand together to fight terrorism.”
If I were a rich man, Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
NETANYAHU IS MR. SUBTLE, ISN’T HE? “Congratulations, America. Congratulations, Mr. President. You got bin Laden. Good riddance.”
WELL, IT’S AN ANCHOR OF SOMETHING ALL RIGHT: “In an unstable Middle East, Israel is the one anchor of stability.”
ON TOP OF ANOTHER NATION: “My friends, you don’t have to -- you don’t need to do nation-building in Israel. We’re already built.”
IN A WORLD...: “In a region where women are stoned, gays are hanged, Christians are persecuted, Israel stands out. It is different.” A brave move, coming out against women being stoned and gays hanged. Bibi risks alienating his Republican supporters.
ENJOY: “Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights.”
A BASIC TRUTH: “This startling fact reveals a basic truth: Israel is not what is wrong with about the Middle East; Israel is what is right about the Middle East.”
What is wrong about the Middle East, of course, is Iran, and he went on about that for a bit, and how Iran would totally nuke D.C. if it had nukes.
HE MENTIONED THE HOLOCAUST! DRINK! “Less than seven decades after 6 million Jews were murdered, Iran’s leaders deny the Holocaust of the Jewish people, while calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state.”
All day long I’d biddy biddy bum, If I were a wealthy man.
I AM OUTRAGED AT THE OUTRAGE AT THE LACK OF OUTRAGE! “Now, there’s something that makes the outrage even greater. And you know what that is? It’s the lack of outrage.”
ALSO, THAT THEY’RE NOT VERY GOOD AT SPORTS: “Now, as for Israel, if history has taught the Jewish people anything, it is that we must take calls for our destruction seriously.”
PAINFUL COMPROMISES: “I’m willing to make painful compromises to achieve this historic peace... Now, this is not easy for me. It’s not easy because I recognize that in a genuine peace, we’ll be required to give up parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland. And you have to understand this: In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers. We’re not the British in India. We’re not the Belgians in the Congo.” You might be confused into thinking that they’re foreign occupiers because of the 44 years of occupation. It’s like an optical illusion or something.
SO HELPFUL: “We’ve helped, on our side, we’ve helped the Palestinian economic growth by removing hundreds of barriers and roadblocks to the free flow of goods and people”. Of course we’re the ones put those barriers and roadblocks in place, but hey.
INSERT YOUR OWN OBVIOUS JOKE HERE: “The Palestinian economy is booming.”
I wouldn’t have to work hard. Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
He goes on about the generosity of the Israelis. Every Israeli prime minister since the Oslo Accords were signed has been willing to pretend to be willing to establish a Palestinian state, with certain... conditions... but “so far the Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a Palestinian state if it meant accepting a Jewish state alongside it. You see, our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It’s always been about the existence of the Jewish state. ... It’s time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say, ‘I will accept a Jewish state.’”
GENEROUS: “Now, the precise delineation of those borders must be negotiated. We’ll be generous about the size of the future Palestinian state.” Generous with stolen land.
VERY FIRM: “but we’ll be very firm on where we put the border with it.” And on what side of the border Palestinian refugees will be from the land from which they were expelled. And who gets Jerusalem.
WHAT YOU KNOW VERY WELL: “But you know very well that in the Middle East the only peace that will hold is a peace you can defend.”
BUT I THOUGHT THE ONLY PEACE THAT WILL HOLD IS A PEACE YOU CAN DEFEND? “So it’s therefore vital, absolutely vital, that a Palestinian state be fully demilitarized.”
Although he thought it was very important for Palestinians to recognize “a Jewish state” before anything else happens, it’s also very important for the UN not to recognize a Palestinian state. “Peace can only be achieved around the negotiating table. The Palestinian attempt to impose a settlement through the United Nations will not bring peace. It should be forcefully opposed by all those who want to see this conflict end.”
“But peace can only be negotiated with partners committed to peace, and Hamas is not a partner for peace.”
“So I say to President Abbas, ‘Tear up your pact with Hamas, sit down and negotiate, make peace with the Jewish state. And if you do, I promise you this: Israel will not be the last country to welcome a Palestinian state as the new member of the United Nations. It will be the first to do so.’” So he will recognize a Palestinian state as long as he can dictate who runs it.
If I were a biddy biddy rich, Yidle-diddle-didle-didle man.
In Brown v. Plata, the Supreme Court upheld (5-4) a federal court order that California start releasing prisoners to alleviate unconstitutionally icky (i.e., care that “fall[s] below the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society”) prison conditions, especially inadequate medical and mental health treatment. Let’s look at Scalia’s dissent (pdf, dissent begins on page 59), joined by Thomas, shall we?
Scalia drops any pretense to be a neutral arbiter of the law, explicitly calling for a desired outcome to shape legal interpretation: “There comes before us, now and then, a case whose proper outcome is so clearly indicated by tradition and common sense, that its decision ought to shape the law, rather than vice versa. One would think that, before allowing the decree of a federal district court to release 46,000 convicted felons, this Court would bend every effort to read the law in such a way as to avoid that outrageous result.” Bend every effort. Read the law in such a way.
Scalia objects strenuously to that whole “evolving standards of decency” thing, because he sees it as giving undue interpretative power to judges, and since he is against evolution, standards, and decency.
He denies that there should ever have been a class-action suit, because merely being a patient in a horrendously inadequate system doesn’t necessarily mean that your treatment was horrendously inadequate and your 8th Amendment rights violated (the “theory of systemic unconstitutionality”). Scalia argues that the lower court’s remedy, large-scale prison releases, is not narrowly drawn, as he thinks it should be, to deal only with those specific cases where the horrendously inadequate system provided horrendously inadequate care, while leaving the horrendously inadequate system intact. He grudgingly admits that a prisoner denied constitutionally required medical treatment might – might – be ordered released, but sees no reason to alter a system that will inevitably and predictably deprive prisoners of constitutionally required medical treatment.
And the majority of the 46,000 prisoners that would be released aren’t even part of the class: “Most of them will not be prisoners with medical conditions or severe mental illness...” Of course the California prison system’s facilities are also incapable of determining which prisoners even have medical conditions or severe mental illnesses. “...and many will undoubtedly be fine physical specimens who have developed intimidating muscles pumping iron in the prison gym.” Fat Tony is very intimidated by the thought of fine physical specimens with muscles formed by pumping iron in the prison gym. And a little excited. And a little ashamed that he’s a little excited. And a little excited that he’s a little ashamed.
Scalia suggests that the majority opinion’s rather anodyne and routine reminder to the 9th Circuit that its release order might be modified is a “ceremonial washing of the hands” to absolve the Supremes of responsibility for the awesome wave of bloodshed Scalia anticipates. For some reason the Nostradamus of the bench is able to see into the future and predict that releasing prisoners will result in injury and death, but not that subjecting prisoners to inadequate medical and mental health facilities will result, as the majority opinion says, in an inmate dying needlessly every 6 or 7 days.
(Alito, in a dissent joined by Roberts, admits “past instances in which particular prisoners received shockingly deficient medical care” – without bringing himself to admit that a system that hasn’t changed will produce more such instances in the future – but says that “such anecdotal evidence cannot be given undue weight in assessing the current state of the California system.” After all, the California prison system’s population is “larger than that of many medium-sized cities” and many people in medium-sized cities also have crappy medical care. So that’s okay then.)
President Taft goes to the Bronx Zoo and shakes hand with a chimpanzee named Baldy. Baldy’s keeper, who is 180 pounds, says the chimp can lift him off his feet. “Every one looked expectantly at President Taft, wondering if he would offer to let the chimpanzee lift him. ‘Indeed?’ is as far, however as the President would commit himself.”
Taft is not only in the city to meet chimps but to open the new New York Public Library because, he says, the opening of a library reaching 8,000,000 is a matter of national importance. It will be the first and only public library in New York to open on Sundays. The $29 million library has an electrical plant as large as that of the city of Stockholm. Unlike in the great majority of libraries, the stacks will be open to most people, rather than patrons having to wait for someone to bring their books to them.
An 18-year-old messenger for a stock exchange company is convicted of grand larceny by a jury which did not believe that he “lost” a $10,000 bill.
A black man, Jim Sweat, who killed a judge and his (negro) cook in Gallatin, Tenn., is lynched by a mob of “the leading citizens of the town”. They stamped him almost to death, then hung him. Interestingly, only three years before, Sweat had murdered a (presumably black) servant who refused his invitation to a dance, but was sentenced to only one year and served only a little of that before receiving a pardon due to testimonials to his good character from prominent (i.e., white) citizens, including the judge he later killed.
Headline of the Day -100: “Badly Crippled Naps Beaten.” (Really, why did anyone think Naps was a good name for a baseball team?)
There are rumors of a planned counter-revolution in Portugal.
