Today -100: July 28, 1910: Of Harding

The Ohio Republican convention nominates former Lt. Gov. Warren Harding to be governor (Spoiler Alert: he will lose).

Asshole of the Day

Israeli police arrested, and then released, the head of a yeshiva in an illegal West Bank settlement, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, for writing a book on when it’s okay with God if you kill children, for example if they’re the child of someone you want to put pressure on, or if they’re standing in the way – “children are often doing this” – or if they are the children of enemies in time of war and “it is clear that they will grow up to harm us” and “it is assumed that they will grow up to be evil like their parents.” “Anywhere where the presence of a gentile poses a threat to Israel, it is permissible to kill him, even if it is a righteous gentile who is not responsible for the threatening situation.”

Shapira was arrested in January for an arson attack on a mosque in the West Bank, but was released.

A Knesset member says the arrest is just like “the days of Czarist Russia” and a spokesman for Shapira said: “Once more we are seeing rabbis being gagged and serious damage inflicted to their honor...”

Today -100: July 27, 1910: Of Bryan and the liquor Democrats

Like Teddy Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan continues to exercise a fascination over the public imagination, but his influence just gets smaller and smaller. Now, he has failed to get the Democrats of his own state of Nebraska to support him on the county option for prohibition. He claims there is an organized attempt by the liquor interests to obtain control of the state, and attacks the “liquor Democrats.” The new plank opposes making any plan to regulate the liquor trade a party question, saying any such plans should be decided by a popular vote, “and that the cause of good government and public morals will be better served in that way than by dividing the people into hostile factions on purely moral issues.”

Geologists calculate the age of the earth as somewhere between 55 million and 70 million years old. So wrong.

Metaphor alert metaphor alert metaphor alert metaphor alert metaphor alert

Pentagon spokesmodel Dave Lapan won’t comment on the WikiLeaks docs: “Just because they are posted on the Internet, doesn’t make them unclassified.” It’s that Pentagonal ability to deny reality that has brought us where we are today in Afghanistan.

Yup, that face is still as punchable as ever

George Bush attended a baseball game yesterday

Who needs a real newspaper when we have the Daily Telegraph?

That said, anyone with a tunnel dug under the Times paywall should feel free to email or post in comments anything interesting in the Times.

Today we’ve got 18 dead in a stampede during the annual “Love Parade” in Duisburg, Germany. Even if you stick the word “love” in there, you just really don’t want Germans marching in a line; no good ever comes of it.

The Headline of the Day is not “Ed Balls Considers Quitting Labour Leadership Race after Union Snub,” it’s the one every newspaper editor in Britain in hoping and praying for: “Balls Out.”

Name of the Day: British Justice Minister Crispin Blunt, whose name is a mixed message if ever there was one.

A Methodist minister in... actually the article doesn’t say where, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter... will tweet holy communion. People are supposed to read the tweets out loud, tweet back “amen” or possibly #amen at the appropriate intervals, and eat their own bread – but not rye bread, that’s too Jew-y, and definitely not Cheetos unless you’re a Unitarian.

“Hollywood Fears the 3D Bubble Has Already Burst.” Which looked totally awesome in 3D, according to an excited 11-year-old boy.

Today -100: July 24, 1910: Of blockade-running, the magnetical pole for all the snobs and imbeciles of the world, and Taft’s ankle

The US is ignoring the Nicaraguan government’s order closing Bluefields as a port, and has announced that it will protect – against the Madriz government – “legitimate” US trade.

The Futurists announce their desire to destroy Venice, “magnetical pole for all the snobs and imbeciles of the world,” fill in its canals, and create a commercial and military Venice, with nice factories and stuff. Pamphlets to this effect were thrown from St. Mark’s. This has been called the beginning of performance art.

Front Page Headline of the Day -100: “Taft Bravely Limps on Strained Ankle.” A golf injury: so presidential.

Today -100: July 23, 1910: Of Korean colonization, Mormon missionaries, lynchers let loose, and other stuff I’m too lazy to find alliterations for

Korea is about to become fully a colony of Japan, with the Japanese-appointed Resident-General no longer reporting to the Korean emperor but to the Japanese prime minister. Japanese Prime Minister Katsura Taro says: “Our Government realizes the necessity of adopting the fundamental principles of the Japanese administration in Korea. Some people seem to fear that the annexation of Korea may give rise to insurrections, but the Government does not mind an insurrection.”

Prussia expels 21 Mormon missionaries.

In Cairo, Illinois, 12 people are acquitted of the attempted lynching (not an actual lynching, as the NYT says), in February.

A black man is lynched in Belton, Texas. He had tried to enter the room of a white woman, then killed the constable attempting to arrest him. A mob burned him at the stake.

A woman escaped from jail in New York, but seems to have committed no actual crime in doing so. The laws against escape refer to those convicted of felonies or misdemeanors, but she had been convicted of disorderly conduct, which is neither.

Headline of the Day -100: “Taft Speaks Out for Long Vacations.” In a speech at Bar Harbor during his, yes, vacation, he said that since his father’s time, we’ve learned that two or three months’ vacation are necessary to recover from the “hard and nervous strain” of working during autumn and spring.

Spoke too soon. Headline of the Day -100: “Girl Weds Pianist; Father Very Angry.”

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).