And it will kill Bill Murray with its laser eyes

PETA wants Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog replaced in the Groundhog Day festival with a robot groundhog (William Deeley, president of the Inner Circle of the Groundhog Club, responds that Phil is “treated better than the average child in Pennsylvania”) (true fact: by Pennsylvania law and custom, children must dig their own burrows, in which they live until their seventeenth birthday). And if the robotic rodent sees its own shadow, well I for one welcome our new robogroundhog overlords.

Today -100: January 28, 1910: Of billy clubs and snow balls, aerial warfare, and church-going saloon-keepers

Three more NYPD officers have been fired for clubbing citizens, including one who clubbed small children to break up a snowball fight. The mayor and police commissioner are also investigating police violence towards striking shirtwaist workers.

Wealthy aviator Charles B. Harmon insists in a lecture in Pasadena that aviation has rendered the battleship obsolete. “It has already been demonstrated that one balloon or aeroplane can carry enough explosives to annihilate any fleet in the world, while the warships would be powerless to protect themselves.”

A “colored woman suffrage mass meeting” will be held next month to organize a suffrage league among black women.

Indianapolis Mayor Shank has sentenced saloon keepers who broke the liquor laws to attend church, suspending their licences until they show a letter of attendance from a minister.

State of the Union Address: People expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills

WILL THIS BE ON THE TEST? “Again, we are tested.”

GOSH, HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED: “One year ago, I took office amid two wars, an economy rocked by a severe recession, a financial system on the verge of collapse, and a government deeply in debt.”

BUT THE SHUTTER BUSINESS IS DOING GREAT! “But the devastation remains: One in ten Americans still can’t find work. Many businesses have shuttered.”

IT’S CALLED PENMANSHIP, TEACHERS: “I hear about them in the letters that I read each night. The toughest to read are those written by children”.


LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION: “They don’t understand why it seems like bad behavior on Wall Street is rewarded, but hard work on Main Street isn’t”. You know, some people work quite hard at bad behaviour. Where’s their recognition? Where’s their recognition?

WAIT FOR THE PRESIDENT’S DAY SALE: “They’re tired of the partisanship and the shouting and the pettiness. They know we can’t afford it, not now.”

CONSTIPATION IS A TERRIBLE PROBLEM, ISN’T IT? “One woman wrote to me and said, ‘We are strained but hopeful, struggling but encouraged.’”

BUT STILL MORE POPULAR THAN JOE LIEBERMAN: “And if there’s one thing that has unified Democrats and Republicans -- and everybody in between -- it’s that we all hated the bank bailout. I hated it. (APPLAUSE) I hated it. I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal.”


LET’S INVADE THEM AND TAKE THAT SHIT! “There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains or the new factories that manufacture clean-energy products.”

CONTENTIOUS, GRIDLOCKED – WHAT SILLY BILLY SAID THAT? “From the day I took office, I’ve been told that addressing our larger challenges is too ambitious, such effort would be too contentious. I’ve been told that our political system is too gridlocked and that we should just put things on hold for a while.”

AT THIS POINT WE’D SETTLE FOR SIXTH: “Well, I do not accept second place for the United States of America.”

BUT WE’VE ALREADY BOUGHT THE WHIPS AND THUMB SCREWS: “Look, I’m not interested in punishing banks.”

HE SORTA UNDERCUT THIS ONE BY EARLIER COMMENTS ABOUT THE NEED FOR “A NEW GENERATION OF SAFE, CLEAN NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS”: “I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change.”

HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP FOR EVERYBODY! “So tonight, we set a new goal: We will double our exports over the next five years, an increase that will support 2 million jobs in America.”


NO ONE AN ACCUSE HIM OF GETTING SOME LEGISLATIVE VICTORY UNDER HIS BELT: “I didn’t choose to tackle this issue [HCR] to get some legislative victory under my belt. And by now, it should be fairly obvious that I didn’t take on health care because it was good politics.”

MICHELLE IS TACKLING FAT KIDS: “I want to acknowledge our first lady, Michelle Obama, who this year is creating a national movement to tackle the epidemic of childhood obesity”.

“Still, this is a complex issue. And the longer it was debated, the more skeptical people became. I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people. And I know that with all the lobbying and horse-trading, this process left most Americans wondering, ‘What’s in it for me?’” A pony? (‘cause of the horse-trading. Try to keep up.)

THIS SPEECH IS A PRE-EXISTING CONDITION: “By the time I’m finished speaking tonight, more Americans will have lost their health insurance.”


HE THINKS REPUBLICANS WILL LET TEMPERATURES COOL. ISN’T THAT ADORABLE? “As temperatures cool, I want everyone to take another look at the plan we’ve proposed.”

WAIT, HAS NO ONE EVER TOLD HIM ABOUT SINGLE-PAYER? “But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. Let me know. Let me know.”

Three-year discretionary spending freeze. Bipartisan Fiscal Commission, which “can’t be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem.”


NAKED JELLO WRESTLING? “Rather than fight the same tired battles that have dominated Washington for decades, it’s time to try something new.”

“With all due deference to separation of powers, last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections. I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests or, worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people.” Decided by the American people – isn’t he just adorable?

And he has a really specific proposal: “And I urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps correct some of these problems.”

NO, HE THOUGHT HE’D HAVE TO BE SWORN IN TOO: “Now, I’m not naive. I never thought that the mere fact of my election would usher in peace and harmony and some post-partisan era.”

THEY SHOULD DO IT BECAUSE IT’S FUNNY: “Neither party should delay or obstruct every single bill just because they can.”

BIDEN PREFERS TO TAKE THE TRAIN FOR THE HILLS: “To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades and the people expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills.” Really? Is that what people expect?

poll by twiigs.com

AND NOW, OBAMA TRIES TO SHAME THOSE WITHOUT SHAME. GOOD LUCK WITH THAT: “And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, a supermajority, then the responsibility to govern is now yours, as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership.”


SADLY: “Sadly, some of the unity we felt after 9/11 has dissipated.” Yeah, the unity that was exploited to curtail our freedoms and propel us into two wars, it’s so very sad to see any of that dissipate.

“MAKE NO MISTAKE” IS THE NEW “IN OTHER WORDS”: “But make no mistake: This war is ending, and all of our troops are coming home.”

INNOCENT BYSTANDER: “We have gone from a bystander to a leader in the fight against climate change.” Bystander? We were, and are, the leading contributor to climate change. We weren’t standing, we were driving our fat children to school in giant Hummers.

He says Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will be repealed this very year.

I FORGET, WHICH IS THE TOP-RATED CABLE NEWS CHANNEL AGAIN? “The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates to silly arguments, big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.”

“Our administration has had some political setbacks this year, and some of them were deserved.” He did not say which ones.

“We have finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade. But a new year has come. A new decade stretches before us.” Say what you will about the man, he totally knows how to read a calendar.

BIG FINISH: “We don’t quit. I don’t quit. Let’s seize this moment, to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more.”

I refuse to punish the people

Rather than raise taxes on rich people, Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed cuts, or implemented them through the line-item veto, to support services for the blind and disabled, vision care for poor children, AIDS prevention, shelters for abused women, the welfare-to-work program, adult day-care, the Healthy Families program, etc etc etc. So why does he oppose tax increases? “I refuse to punish the people.”

Today -100: January 27, 1910: Of the not-quite-47th-state

There is talk about bits of California and Oregon forming their own state, Siskiyou (in later decades, the proposed state would be named Jefferson).

Or he could just compromise and be a mediocre one-term president

Obama told Diane Sawyer, “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president. ... You know, there’s a tendency in Washington to think that our job description of elected officials is to get re-elected. That’s not our job description.”

So if I’m understanding him, the way to get re-elected is to do a mediocre job, but doing a good job would make him so unpopular that he’d be defeated.

Crime and punishment in Bangladesh

You may have seen this: A 16-year-old rape victim in Bangladesh who became pregnant was sentenced by a village court to 101 lashes. The rapist, of course, got off scot-free. The Bangladeshi Daily Star implies that her father quickly married her off following the rape out of shame. But when she was found to be pregnant, she was divorced. My question is whether the village court shared with some American anti-abortionists the myth that rape victims can’t become pregnant, that conception requires orgasm. Does anyone know if that belief if widespread in that part of the world?

Also, 101?

Today -100: January 26, 1910: Of merry amputations, illegal football, and chicken thieves

Dr. Louise Robinovitch (noted here in November for demonstrating a defibrilator to the Edison Comp) has successfully used electricity as an anaesthetic in Hartford on a man having four toes amputated, although somehow I doubt the NYT sub-hed “Patient Has Merry Time.”

The Virginia Senate’s Committee on Schools and Colleges favorably reported out a bill to criminalize playing or officiating the game of football, with a $10 fine for the first offense and a 30-day jail sentence for a second.

Secretary of Commerce and Labor Charles Nagel, campaigning in Missouri for a congressional candidate, intervened in the trial of two boys for chicken-stealing. He got them off.

Possibly a rubber sword

Obama, the WaPo tells us, will meet Friday with House Republicans.

Does Obama even own a sword? Because it’s not a proper surrender ceremony unless you hand over your sword.

The State of the Union is...?

Time for our annual SOTU contest: What adjective will Obama use to complete the above sentence.

For extra points, what big initiative will he propose, post-Scott Brown? I’m guessing midnight basketball.

Well, that won’t help

To protest the shortage of tents available for refugees in Haiti, President Préval is moving into a tent.

Clarification: a tent office. Somehow I doubt he’ll actually be sleeping there.

Misc

The Afghan parliamentary elections are postponed from May to September, and quite possibly forever. International donors simply aren’t willing to stump up tens of millions of dollars to pay for a fraudulent election.

Sorry, let me rephrase that: international donors simply aren’t willing to be seen stumping up tens of millions of dollars to pay for an insultingly obviously fraudulent election.

Four Kenyans who were abused physically and sexually by the British in the 1950s are suing. The British government is arguing that the case should be thrown out because Britain isn’t actually liable for the acts of its own colonial government, that in fact Kenya became responsible for them upon independence.

Boy, there’s a joke in here somewhere: “Officials Fear Toxic Ingredient in Botox Could Become Terrorist Tool” (WaPo).

Today -100: January 25, 1910: Of acceptable beatings

Vice Chancellor of New Jersey Lindley Garrison, sitting as a judge, rules that a woman in the process of suing her husband for divorce should not get alimony in the interim on the grounds that her doctor husband hadn’t beaten her up all that badly and also she deserved it, having hung out with some guy after her husband told her not to, and called him “the old dog” to the servants. Headline of the Day -100: “Beating Just, Says Court.”

Today -100: January 24, 1910: Of negro cadets, meat, kiddie factory workers, and kaiser sandwiches

West Point is very worried that it may have to admit as a cadet one Ollie R. Smith of Cheyenne, who is black (he is an alternate, but will be in if some white kid fails the entrance exams, as 1 in 4 do). He would not be the first, as some blacks were admitted after the Civil War, but it has been 25 years or so since the last. Past practice at West Point was to send them to coventry, to ignore them – not even hazing them. Actually, a few paragraphs later, the NYT mentions a Johnson Chesnut Whittaker, who did experience hazing at West Point in 1880, if by hazing you mean being tied up, beaten and having one ear cut off and the other slit. West Point investigated and decided that Whittaker had done it all to himself, dishonorably discharging him and fining him $1. President Arthur refused to accept the findings and ordered him restored, but for some reason he soon resigned. (Wait, not true. Wikipedia says they expelled him a second time for failing an exam. He had been the first black man to graduate Harvard. Later he was a teacher, lawyer, principal and psych professor.) Anyway, the NYT interviews a lot of military types, none of whom think letting Smith into West Point is a good idea.

Side note on usage: the NYT calls it the “civil war,” without caps.

The St. Louis Central Trades and Labor Council voted against joining the meat strike for 30 days. A woman delegate accused them of doing so “simply because the working women were the first to start the movement here.”

The British Home Office orders Lady Constance Lytton (see yesterday) released from prison before her two-week sentence.

The NY State Commissioner of Labor says that “the problem of child labor in the factories of this State is well in hand.” By that he means that while 10,415 children below the age of 16 were discovered working in factories in 1909, only 8% of them were employed illegally. So, well in hand.

Headline of the Day -100: “Kaiser Passes Sandwiches.” Kaiser Wilhelm invited University of California President Benjamin Ide Wheeler to a nice family gathering. “It was a typical German domestic scene, the Empress doing needlework while taking part in the conversation, and the Emperor himself passed around the sandwiches and other light supper dishes.” Must... not... make... lame... kaiser roll... joke...

Why Scott Brown won. Theory 2.

What Scott Brown said: “I’m Scott Brown. I drive a pickup truck.”

What Massachusetts voters thought: Must be one of them lesbians. Lesbians are wicked hot.

Why Scott Brown won. Theory 1.

What Scott Brown said: “I’m Scott Brown. I drive a pickup truck.”

What Massachusetts voters heard: I will help you move.

Adjusting our privacy expectations

Saw Michael Chertoff on McNeil-Lehrer, hawking full-body scanners and saying people would just have to “adjust their privacy expectations.” Of course if there’s one person whose privacy expectations aren’t threatened by full-body scanners, it’s the living skeleton.

The purest form of self-defense

Headline Mixed Metaphor of the Day (NYT): “Republicans Strain to Ride Tea Party Tiger.”

Annoying Grant of Anonymity of the Day: The NYT, on the increase in drone attacks in Pakistan following the death of those CIA operatives: “Today, officials deny that vengeance is driving the increased attacks, though one called the drone strikes ‘the purest form of self-defense.’”

Or is this the purest form of self defense? Mircea Geoana, who lost the Romanian presidential election in December, getting 49.66% of the vote, blames witchcraft, specifically a “negative energy attack” during a debate that caused him to perform badly. And in fact, President Traian Basescu did go to that debate with a parapsychologist slash clairvoyant slash mind-control expert. This is the president and his court wizard in 2007.

Today -100: January 23, 1910: Of Alaska, bulldogs, and Liberal snobbishness

The Senate Committee on Territories decides on a plan for a Legislative Council for Alaska: a governor, attorney general, commissioner of interior and mines, and 8 judges. All appointed by the US president. If that system had still been in place under the Bush Administration, Alaska’s appointed governor would still have been Sarah Palin.

Creepy Headline of the Day -100: “Bulldog Breeders Form a New Body.”

Mrs Humphry Ward, a best-selling novelist in her time, which was the late 19th century, is the most prominent British anti-suffragist. But that doesn’t stop her writing letters to electors in Hertfordshire, where she is running her wastrel son’s campaign for Parliament. A complete non-entity, he would be known as “the member for Mrs. Humphry Ward.”

In Britain it has just become known that Lady Constance Lytton is in prison. A suffragette, Lytton had been given a prison sentence before, but it was unsatisfactory in that she was treated with favoritism (not being force-fed, that sort of thing), supposedly on account of her fragile health and certainly not at all because she was Lady Constance Lytton.


“Simply Liberal snobbishness,” she complained. So she disguised herself as a working-class woman, called herself Jane Warton,


and got arrested again, for breaking a prison window, and this time, funnily enough, prison medical authorities didn’t find evidence of a weak heart and did force feed her. (Spoiler alert: about a year later she had a massive stroke, and wrote her book on her prison experience with her left hand.)

Unequal and undemocratic information flow

China complained that attacks on its censorship of the internet amount to... wait for it... information imperialism. The Global Times (published in English by the People’s Daily) explains (and I’ll quote at length because I gather that Chinese pro-censorship diatribes against Google have themselves been censored today, so this may not continue to be available on the web) that the “bulk of the information flowing from the US and other Western countries is loaded with aggressive rhetoric against those countries that do not follow their lead.” Further, disadvantaged countries “could not produce the massive flow of information required, and could never rival the Western countries in terms of information control and dissemination,” therefore, “there is absolutely no equality and fairness. The online freedom of unrestricted access is, thus, only one-way traffic, contrary to the spirit of democracy and calculated to strengthen a monopoly.” “China’s real stake in the ‘free flow of information’ is evident in its refusal to be victimized by information imperialism.”