Fair question

Zachary Tomanelli of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) asks “How Many Breitbart Frauds Will Media Fall For?”

All of them.

This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.

More news from the Daily Telegraph; screw the Times of London paywall

“Call for 80 Per Cent of Men in Africa to Be Circumcised to Prevent Spread of Aids.” Or all men to be 80% circumcised. Whatever.

A German teacher with a paralyzing fear of rabbits has lost in her attempt to get an injunction against a 14-year-old girl who kept making drawings of bunnies.

Headline of the Day: “Catholic Church: Confessional Cannot Be Used as a Sauna.” A decommissioned church in Vienna put the confessional up on eBay, describing it as perfect for a one-person sauna, a children’s playhouse (must... resist... yet another... child abuse joke...) or a small bar. The bidding was up to, um, 666.66 euros before the archdiocese stepped in.

Cardiff borough councillor John Dixon (LibDem) may be suspended for failing to “show respect and consideration for others” for having tweeted “I didn’t know the Scientologists had a church on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off.” He has since posted “am I going to get into more trouble for saying that, right now, I’m bigger than Xenu, do you think?”

A whale crash lands on a yacht off South Africa.


The Telegraph also has a photo gallery from the 6th Annual Chap Olympiad, for chaps, bounders and cads. Cucumber sandwich discus, and the like.

Sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals

In Israel, an Arab man is sentenced to 18 months in prison for “rape by deception,” that is, the sex was consensual, but he had told her he was Jewish. One of the judges said “the court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price – the sanctity of their bodies and souls.”

Today -100: July 21, 1910: Of general colons and criminal libel

One of the Nicaraguan rebel leaders, Gen. Carmen Corea, whose nom de guerre was Gen. Colon, has died in battle. I’m guessing “Gen. Colon” sounds better in Spanish.

Gov. Beryl F. Carroll of Iowa is indicted for criminal libel for things he said about the chairman of the State Board of Control whilst demanding his resignation. “The Governor was permitted to remain at liberty without bond.”

Let us not confuse the oil spill with the Libyan bomber

Obama met today with large-faced British Prime Minister David Cameron.

ESCELLENT, I MEAN ELKSELLENT: O: “We have just concluded some excellent discussions -- including whether the beers from our hometowns that we exchanged are best served warm or cold.” Cameron later admitted that he got so pissed drinking the beer Obama gave him – cold – while watching the World Cup that he actually cheered for Germany. And ordered an Argentine ship bombed.


IS THAT SPECIAL OR “SPECIAL”? “Mr. Prime Minister, we can never say it enough. The United States and the United Kingdom enjoy a truly special relationship.”

Cameron was most impressed: “I was most impressed by how tidy your children’s bedrooms were.” Seriously though, Barack, keep your kids’ bedrooms out of the White House tour.

Cameron called the international conference in Afghanistan a “real achievement” for the Karzai regime, neglecting to mention the rocket attack on the Kabul airport just as the plane carrying the UN secretary-general was on approach.

Cameron offered an important clarification: “And let us not confuse the oil spill with the Libyan bomber.”

Hillary’s balls

Hillary Clinton is in Kabul. Here she is at a traditional crafts bazaar selling traditional made-in-China products.


Here she is at a women’s empowerment event.


CAPTION CONTEST!

Today -100: July 20, 1910: The king has emigrated, long live the king

A new Gypsy King has been elected, Emil Mitchell. The gypsy chiefs had intended to make the formal proclamation at the US State Department building, but were not allowed to do so. The king is described as “a big, bewhiskered nomad about fifty years old”. The previous king is not dead, but emigrated to Canada, which is much the same thing considered to constitute abdication.

With a new cable between England and France making telephonic communication intelligible, or reasonably close to it, for the first time, the NYT speculates that it might soon be possible to lay a trans-Atlantic line, although obviously “It is not conceivable that ocean telephoning will ever be cheap”, or competitive with the telegraph or wireless. And it suggests that such communication, “overcoming the remoteness of nations” as it does, will prevent wars.

This is all predicated on a method, developed just a decade before, of reinforcing telephone wires at specific intervals with copper wire. Until that method was discovered (the telephone was invented in 1876), the electric waves dissipated so that phone conversation was only feasible up to 20 miles or so.

Today -100: July 19, 1910: Of inter-racial boxing

The Georgia state senate passes a bill to bar the exhibition of moving pictures of prizefights between people of different races.

A NYT editorial strongly supports the idea of the president of Princeton University, Dr. Woodrow Wilson, running for governor in New Jersey.

Too

I’m not on Twitter, but for those playing along with #PalinAsShakespeare (caught making up words like refudiate, she compared herself to Shakespeare, who also made up words, except that he did it to communicate better), in which Shakespeare quotes are Palinated (To be or not to be? HEY, that’s a GOTCHA question! etc), I have an entry:

To be or not to be, too, also.

In interest of healing

Two Sarah Palin tweets today:


Silly Muslims, don’t you understand that your religion is an unnecessary, heart-stabbing provocation?

Today -100: July 18, 1910: Of funk and war dirigibles

Name/Headline of the Day -100: “Autos Bother Dr. Funk.” They harsh his mellow.

Huh, turns out to be the Funk in Funk & Wagnalls.

Count von Moltke forms a company to build war dirigibles for Germany. I know zeppelins were actually a fairly formidable weapon during World War I, in the bombing of London if not so much on the battlefield, but the phrase “war dirigible” just makes me giggle.

High risk

The new high-risk insurance pools won’t have abortion coverage (except in cases of rape, incest or endangering the life of the mother). The Obama admin won’t permit states to have abortion coverage or even include a provision for women to buy it with their own money. This wasn’t in the health care bill: Obama decided on this one all by himself.

Except it was probably part of a secret deal with Bart Stupak (which still spells Kaputs backwards) and his ilk to get the bill passed.

Note that the exception is for endangering the life of the mother – nothing about endangering the health of the mother (and those were the words of the Dept of Health and Human Services).

Today -100: July 17, 1910: Of Crippen, black teachers, and suffering noses

The NYT’s London correspondent notes with surprise that Scotland Yard is actually talking to the press about the Crippen case, contrary to its usual tight-lipped policy. Why, “before long it is likely that even telephones may be installed.” Scotland Yard didn’t have telephones in 1910?

There is a bit of a fuss in Elizabeth, NJ over a black teacher who was just hired by the school district to teach a class of white students. Several members of the Board of Education said they didn’t know she was colored when they hired her.

An Association of Noses That Suffer is formed in Paris to work for the abolition of smelly things like tanneries, patchouli, automobiles and French people. I’m not proud of that joke, I’m really not, but some things in life and blogging are simply too powerful to be resisted.

The logic is impeccable

John McCain twitters (but I repeat myself):

Cap

The new cap seems to be maybe possibly containing the BP spill. Well, as Lizzie will tell you, it’s all about the chapeaux.

Today -100: July 16, 1910: Slow news day

Front Page Headline of the Day -100: “Rockefeller Has Toothache.”

Today -100: July 15, 1910: Of Crippen

At the request of Scotland Yard, the police of NYC and Hoboken are looking out for Dr. Hawley Crippen on arriving ships. The torso – just the torso – of what is assumed to be his wife was found in his basement.

Hybrid

Porsche is introducing a hybrid car. A hybrid of what, douchebag and guy-pretending-to-be-green-to-get-laid?

Today -100: July 14, 1910: Of fish dicks, naps, and royal funerals

Headline of the Day -100: “Fish-Dick Wedding.” That’s the wedding of Stuyvesant Fish, Jr. and Mildred Dick. I’m trying to decide whether Mildred Fish is a better or a worse name than Mildred Dick.

Confusing Sports Headline of the Day -100: “Yanks Show Poor Form Against Naps.” Evidently it has nothing to do with people preferring sleep to masturbation, but rather something to do with the baseball teams the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Naps, which was the actual name of a baseball team; it was picked by a newspaper contest.

Edward VII’s funeral cost Britain $202,500.

Today -100: July 13, 1910: Of Cuban conspiracies and women’s suffrage in Britain

In Cuba, Col. Jorge Valera, who is, the NYT insists on informing us, a mulatto, is arrested along with his associates for allegedly planning to blow up bridges, railways and property owned by foreigners in a fake uprising intended to get the US to intervene militarily, which would break the Cuban stock market and the conspirators would clean up. And they’d have gotten away with it if not for Bruce Willis. Or something.

The British House of Commons passed the second reading of a women’s suffrage bill 299-190. It’s a pretty conservative measure, extending the property-based municipal franchise to parliamentary elections. If this passed, women would make up a small percentage of the electorate. Not that it matters, since the government won’t give the bill parliamentary time to go any further. Prime Minister Asquith gave a strong speech opposing women’s suffrage (the majority of his cabinet supports it), raising the prospect that if women got the vote, next they’d demand to be MPs or even Cabinet positions, gasp horror.