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Today Obama held long-postponed talks with Netanyahu. Then they talked to the press. The Gaza flotillacide never came up.
LIKE HIS WIFE’S KNISHES. HEY OH! “As Prime Minister Netanyahu indicated in his speech, the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable.”
SCREWING OVER MUSLIMS? “It encompasses our national security interests, our strategic interests, but most importantly, the bond of two democracies who share a common set of values”.
PROGRESS: “I commended Prime Minister Netanyahu on the progress that’s been made in allowing more goods into Gaza.” The word progress implies that there is some sort of process that has to be arduously worked through, when in fact Netanyahu could just lift the blockade right now. Also, is no one going to mention that exports from Gaza remain completely embargoed?
TRUER WORDS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN SPOKEN: “I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu wants peace. I think he’s willing to take risks for peace.”
OUR GRASP: “Israel’s security needs met, the Palestinians having a sovereign state that they call their own -- those are goals that have obviously escaped our grasp for decades now.” I must have missed that we were actually trying to grasp for Palestinians having a sovereign state that they call their own for decades now.
BUILDING: “There are going to need to be a whole set of confidence-building measures”. As long as that building doesn’t involve cement in Gaza. Although speaking of building...
TELLING FREUDIAN SLIP IN 5..4..3... “We strongly believe that, given its size, its history, the region that it’s in, and the threats that are leveled against us -- against it, that Israel has unique security requirements.”
Netanyahu said the greatest threat to everyone was Iran. “Iran is brutally terrorizing its people,” he said, adding, “I mean, they banned mullets, for Christ sake.”
Obama praised Israel’s “restraint” in settlement-building.
WHAT IT’S VERY IMPORTANT THE PALESTINIANS NOT DO: “I think it’s very important that the Palestinians not look for excuses for incitement, that they are not engaging in provocative language; that at the international level, they are maintaining a constructive tone, as opposed to looking for opportunities to embarrass Israel.” I’m pretty sure Israel is incapable of embarrassment.
So Palestinians have no real grievances, just “excuses for incitement.” Good to know.
An Israeli reporter asks if Obama now trusts Netanyahu. Obama says he’s always trusted Netanyahu.
“We are going to continually work with the Prime Minister and the entire Israeli government, as well as the Israeli people, so that we can achieve what I think has to be everybody’s goal, which is that people feel secure. They don’t feel like a rocket is going to be landing on their head sometime. They don’t feel as if there’s a growing population that wants to direct violence against Israel.” Well, the IDF is working on that “growing population” thing.
The Queen addressed the United Nations today. Some highlights of her speech:
“We used to own all your asses!”
“Yes, We had Diana killed. Whaddaya gonna do about it?”
“Nations of the world, hear me now: it’s all about the hat, bitches!”
“We are so sorry for whatever Prince Philip said or will say to the Asian delegates.”
Posted by John McCain, this is him, Huckleberry, Holy Joe and Colonel Combover in Afghanistan.
See also his pics inspecting Afghan troops, and at a shura with locals in Kandahar, in which the Three Amigos are dressed like they’re on a fishing trip in Boca. At least take off the baseball cap when sitting – indoors – around a table with Afghan leaders.
Fatalities resulting from Fight of the Century fights: 1 in NY, 3 in Uvaldia, GA, 2 in Little Rock, 1 Houston, 1 Omaha, 1 Mounds, Ill, 1 Tyler, TX. Several cities have banned movies of the fight. NYC Mayor Gaynor, however, says he has no right to do that. 236 people, mostly black, were arrested in Washington, D.C.
Judge George Holt says that of 300,000 people who participated in lynchings in the previous 40 years, 100,000 “unhung murderers” are still alive. Plus 165,000 who committed felonies or murder during violent labor struggles. Add to that night riders and the Black Hand, none of whom have ever been convicted, deaths caused by reckless automobile drivers, who are rarely punished and if so by a trifling fine or short imprisonment, and America is a pretty darned lawless place.
Giovanni Schiaparelli, the astronomer who first claimed to have found canals on Mars, has died. I hope the authorities checked his body for ray-gun marks.
Incongruous Headline of the Day -100: “Safe and Sane Day the Country Over.” Meaning that there were relatively few deaths from fireworks, which were banned in many places, including New York City. However, the United States was anything but safe and sane on July 4, 1910.
The cause: boxer Jack Johnson, who was black, beat James Jeffries, who was white, in the 15th round of the “Fight of the Century.” This did not go over so well with some people. Among many other racial incidents, fights broke out in Omaho, with one black man killed; two black men were killed by white men in Little Rock in separate incidents; on a trolley car in Houston a white man slashed the throat of a black man who had “jeeringly proclaimed Johnson’s victory”; and in Macon, Georgia, “The negroes have become so boisterous in celebrating the victory of Johnson over Jeffries that the authorities doubled the police force to prevent a clash of the races. Several negroes have been beaten and scores of them arrested, but there has been no serious disturbance.” Define “serious,” New York Times. “The negroes have angered the whites by insolent remarks about Jeffries.” Three other “insolent” negroes were killed in a shoot-out with a mob at a construction camp in Uvaldia, Georgia, and others fled “into the woods, where they are being hunted by the whites.” In Wilmington, Delaware, a white man was slashed by a mob of black men, who were then chased into an apartment house by a mob of several thousand whites, who bombarded it with stones. When the cops showed up, the mob tried to lynch the black man they arrested. In Roanoke, VA, a black man who heard of Johnson’s victory said, “‘Now I guess the white folks will let the negroes alone.’ A white man replied, ‘No,’ and the two clashed.” And there were running racial fights all over New York, with gangs of white men and youths looking for blacks to beat up; the Times described one fight as “a direct outcome of an argument over the respective merits of the white and negro races.” But in a touching act of racial reconciliation in St Joseph, Missouri, a white man defended a black man who had been hit by a white man – so a white crowd beat him up instead. Eight dead nation-wide (so far), all black (one of them a black cop in Mounds, Illinois, who was killed by black rioters), although one white man will probably die of his wounds.
Headline of the Day -100: “Americans in Berlin Sad.” Yes, that’s also white guys mourning Johnson’s victory.
In other holiday news, an errant firecracker burned down half of Benton, Pennsylvania.
Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller, the 8th chief justice of the US, died on the 4th of July. Since one seat is already vacant and one functionally vacant, pending cases will be decided by just six justices. Fuller was appointed by Cleveland in 1888. His death leaves only two Democrats on the bench.
Taft spoke to the convention of the National Education Association on the 4th, explaining how American colonial policy in the Philippines was actually in complete conformity with the language of the Declaration of Independence (deriving just powers from the consent of the governed, etc), “when that language is properly understood by the same sort of construction as Lincoln gave to the language ‘All men are created equal.’ ... When the time shall arrive in which the Filipinos can be safely trusted to organize and maintain permanently their own Government, and this Government shall withdraw from the islands or offer to do so, the proposition of the Declaration of Independence will then have been fulfilled and the Government will be a just one, for it will rest on the consent of the governed.” But we can’t do that “in the absence of the full effects of education”. So it’s “a purely altruistic policy”. Ditto for Cuba.
...according to David Petraeus, “we are in this to win.”
He added, “We must demonstrate to the Afghan people — and to the world — that al-Qaida and its network of extremist allies will not be allowed to once again establish sanctuaries in Afghanistan from which they can launch attacks on the Afghan people and on freedom-loving nations around the world.”
But attacks on freedom-hating nations would be okay? How about freedom-just-friends nations? Maybe we need a list of just which nations Colonel Combover considers to be freedom-loving and which ones are not.
Celebrating the 4th of July weekend, mobs lynch black men in Columbia, Alabama and Charleston, Missouri, the latter by a large mob in broad daylight.
Taft uses a new law to withdraw 8,495,731 acres of Alaskan lands from public use.
Paris Hilton was arrested at the World Cup. If that story could work in Twilight, it would be a perfect trifecta of Crap I Don’t Care About.
The Democratic Congressional Committee issues a statement that the issues in the 1910 elections will be “the tariff and its consequences, the extravagant expenditures, wrongdoings of officials, graft that is shown to exist in nearly every Government branch, and the autocratic ruling of the majority party.”
Someone in the New York Medical Journal blames the increase in deaths from tetanus in Britain on the automobile (by stirring up contaminated dust).
Headline of the Day -100: “Knox Must Pay for Gloves.” The Treasury refuses to reimburse Secretary of State Philander Knox for the $4 driving gloves worn by his coachman.
Another example of unfortunate typos in the NYT index: “Johnson Feels Ho Anxiety Now.” That would be boxer Jack Johnson, actually feeling “no anxiety now” about the upcoming “Fight of the Century,” shortly to be held in Reno after the match was run out of California by the governor.
Utterly Incomprehensible Headline of the Day -100: “Imprint Home First in Pansy Stakes.” Turns out, it has something to do with horses.
Headline (just a headline, not a headline of the day -100): “Race Riot in University.” Ruthenian and Polish students at the University of Lemberg.
Glenn Curtiss, the aviator who flew the record-breaking NY-Albany flight in May which I may or may not have mentioned (winning a $10,000 prize from Joseph Pulitzer), demonstrated in front of some naval officers the fun you could have with a plane, dropping 20 bombs and hitting his mark 18 times. “Admiral Kimball expressed himself as greatly impressed with the possibilities of the aeroplane in warfare.”
Milwaukee City Council closes 104 “disorderly” saloons and 2 burlesque theaters. Damn killjoy socialists.
The NYT supports the idea of Taft naming Teddy Roosevelt to head the Peace Commission, “for no other voice would be more listened to.” Although you’d think Taft must have been getting just a little tired of being constantly over-shadowed by his predecessor.
The first international conflict TR might be called upon to settle is a territorial dispute between Canada and the United States, which contests Canada’s claim to exclusive jurisdiction over Hudson Bay. Which basically only affects American whalers, who don’t really care, and they’re whale-killers, so fuck ‘em.
...the hats. Queen Elizabeth visits Canada and meets Mi’kmaq Chief... wait for it... Sylliboy.
In Britain, Prime Minister Asquith has scuttled an attempt by MPs to pass a compromise women’s suffrage bill by refusing to give up any parliamentary time to it. The militant campaign, which has been paused, first for the general election, then so that this bill could be passed, is likely to be resumed.
Say, remember the LZ 7 Deutschland? Began commercial flights last week? It crashed in a storm in Lower Saxony. No one was killed, but the Deutschland is a wreck, “pierced with pine tree stems, a mass of deflated silk and twisted aluminium.” This was its third voyage. It cost $137,500.
Headline of the Day -100: “Police to Stop Smoking Autos.” They’ll go back to cigarettes.
In the lobby of the Cuban Congress, Congresscritter Manuel Lores shot at another congresscritter, Antonio San Miguel, but missed, grazing the head of Conservative Party leader Antonio Gonzales Lanuza. San Miguel had denounced a railroad deal as a colossal fraud.
Robert Taft, son of the president (and later a US senator), driving one of the president’s cars (how many did he own?), ran over an Italian street laborer, one Michael Thisthwolla.
Iceland’s gay marriage law came into effect today. One of the first to take advantage of it: Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir.
I heard this on the BBC World News today and had to confirm it on line – had a bit of difficulty with the spelling: involved in covering up the Catholic child abuse scandal in Belgium: Cardinal Godfried Danneels.
Mexican President slash general (but he really wants to direct) Porfirio Díaz is reelected. No doubt it was a totally fair election, and the opposition Anti-Reelectionist Party, (led by Francisco Madero, who Díaz had arrested) got 2% of the vote.
The Mexican military has been holding “trials” for participants in the Valladolid uprising, followed rapidly by executions. Two defendants were allowed to get married before being put in front of the firing squad.
Kaiser Wilhelm preached a sermon yesterday (Sunday) aboard the imperial yacht. I’d make a What Would Jesus Do joke, but I guess Jesus and Wilhelm did both inherit their father’s business. Wilhelm’s topic was “Did Jesus Live?” The NYT does not inform us of the kaiser’s position on this question.
The outgoing Congress appropriated a record $1,055,000,000.
Sen. William Stone (D-MO) tells the Senate that a syndicate of bankers and whatnot exists in the US to exploit the finances of Nicaragua, backing the Estradist rebels in order to gain control of Nicaragua’s public debt, and calls for the Foreign Relations Committee to investigate US-Nicaraguan relations. Nothing will happen, of course, and Secretary of State Knox denies having heard of any such syndicate. Sen. Stone, of course, is entirely correct.
Retired Colonel William Bradford Homer is killed by a rooster.
