No, Biffy, I expect you to die

It seems like at least 50 people have been suggested as the “real James Bond,” but... Wilfred “Biffy” Dunderdale?

“Dunderdale, Biffy Dunderdale.”

Apologize, Butt!

Headline of the Day (BBC): “England Demand Apology From Butt” (the headline on my feed, not on the linked page). Something about cricket.

Ijaz Butt is probably a perfectly respectable and not at all humorous name in Pakistan.

Today -100: September 21, 1910: Of confabs and lynchings

Taft and TR met a couple of days ago, and talked amiably about whatever. Now TR is denying White House spin that he asked for the meeting, rather than Taft.

For a nice change of pace, some Italians are lynched in Tampa.

Obama town hall: Whacking Wall Street with a stick

Netanyahu wouldn’t extend the settlement “freeze” for something as small as keeping Middle East peace talks going. But he would do it in exchange for the release of the spy Jonathan Pollard.

---

Obama held a “town hall” “discussion” in D.C. for CNBC.

HE’S THE REMINDERER: “But the thing I’ve just got to remind people of is the fact that it took us a decade to get into the problem that we’re in right now.”

YEAH THE QUICK FIX THING, LET’S DO THAT: “So there are a lot of plans in place that can make improvement, but it’s slow and steady, as opposed to the kind of quick fix that I think a lot of people would like to see.”

A lot of the questions were about why he hated rich people so much, including one poor woman who had to eat hot dogs and beans to keep her children in private school, and a hedge fund manager who says Wall Street feels like “we’ve been whacked with a stick” by Obama. Half of America didn’t hear any of the rest of the broadcast, just daydreaming happily about Obama whacking a hedge fund manager with a stick. The CNBC guy actually asked if Obama thought that “working for profit is morally inferior to the kind of work you used to do as a community organizer.” Obama says he doesn’t think that, although he so does think that.

GETTING YOUR FOOT IN THE DOOR WHILE YOU’RE TREADING WATER: “Now, as I said before, what we saw happening during 2001 to the time I took office was wages actually declining for middle-class families, people treading water, young people having more trouble getting their foot in the door in terms of businesses.”

IS IT THAT DREAM ABOUT YOU WHACKING A HEDGE FUND MANAGER WITH A STICK? “So if we’re doing all those things, I am confident that the American Dream will continue for the next generation.” And then, pfft.

On the tea party movement: “I think that America has a noble tradition of being healthily skeptical about government. That’s in our DNA, right? I mean, we came in because the folks over on the other side of the Atlantic had been oppressing folks without giving them representation.” Should a black man in America, even one whose ancestors didn’t come over in shackles, be propagating that particular origin story (although people whose ancestors were kept in chains for generations by the legal system might also be said to have a healthy scepticism about government in their DNA)?

WHAT THE CHALLENGE FOR THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT IS (FINDING A PLACE THAT RENTS OUT FIFES AND DRUMS?): “And so the challenge, I think, for the Tea Party movement is to identify specifically what would you do. It’s not enough just to say, get control of spending. I think it’s important for you to say, I’m willing to cut veterans’ benefits, or I’m willing to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits, or I’m willing to see these taxes go up.”

TELL THAT TO SEN. TOM COBURN: “But you know what, the truth is everybody here probably thinks it’s a pretty good idea that we regulate the food industry, for example, so we don’t get E. coli and salmonella.”

OH GOOD, IT’S ALWAYS GOOD THAT ALL STUPID VIOLENT OPTIONS ARE ON THE TABLE: “We don’t think that a war between Israel and Iran, or military options would be the ideal way to solve this problem. But we are keeping all our options on the table.”

BILL AYRES? REV. WRIGHT? YOUR SECRET MUSLIM PAYMASTERS? “Now, I stay up every night and I wake up every morning thinking about the people who sent me into this job.”

SO WE’RE TOTALLY BONED, IS WHAT YOU’RE SAYING: “I have put forward proposals that are going to require bipartisan cooperation in order for us to get government spending under control.”

And then he went to Philadelphia and bought not one, but two Philly cheese steak sandwiches. The economy is saved!

Questionable folks

Christine O’Donnell says of her having “dabbled into” witchcraft, “How many of you didn’t hang out with questionable folks in high school?”

Reached for comment, sheepish-looking former members of the Moorestown (NJ) High School coven said, “Ditto.”

Today -100: September 20, 1910: Of campaigning and cholera

Woodrow Wilson will confine his campaigning to a single speech in each county in New Jersey.

NYC Mayor William Jay Gaynor, in a letter to this sister which she gave to the NY Evening Post, accuses the opposition press (i.e., the Hearst press) of being responsible for his assassination by lying about what he said when he refused to ban movies of the Johnson-Jeffries fight (although he’s been avoiding reading or hearing anything about the shooting, and doesn’t even know the name of his assassin). The letter gives an extraordinarily detailed account of the sensations of being shot in the throat.

The cholera epidemic in Naples is over, according to the best scientific measure of the time: the blood of St. Januarius liquefied “in the presence of a great multitude.”

Does Queen Sarah of the Morlocks know about this?

One of the soldiers arrested for the sport-killing of Afghan civilians: Cpl. Jeremy Morlock of Wasilla, Alaska.

Today -100: September 18, 1910: Of floggings, nations of madmen, and typical politics in Texas and Illinois

The NYT editorializes against public floggings (a deputy marshal recently refused to permit the flogging in Alaska of 4 Japanese convicted of illegal fishing). Flogging is still used in Delaware against tramps, confidence men, thieves, highwaymen and disorderly persons. I guess that was before Delaware became the hq of all those credit card companies.

Famous British psychiatrist Forbes Winslow (who once offered to catch Jack the Ripper but Scotland Yard said no thanks) says in his memoirs that insanity is rising and “By a simple arithmetical calculation can be shown the exact year when there will be more insane persons in the world than sane. We in England are gradually approaching, with the decadence of our youth, a near proximity to a nation of madmen.” Did no one think to ask him what the “exact year when there will be more insane persons in the world than sane” was? That seems like important information to have.

Judicial temperament, Texas style: one candidate for the office of judge of Guadalupe County shoots a rival candidate.

The Illinois primaries were marked by a great deal of vote-buying (quel surprise), but it seems that while selling one’s vote is illegal in the state, bribing a voter is not.

Today -100: September 17, 1910: Of slanderers, cholera, borders, and suspicious persons

The NYT welcomes the nomination of Woodrow Wilson, seeing it as another sign of the reformism that is originating at the state level. States are “proving their independence and self-sustaining powers. And they are shaming the slanderer [that would be Teddy Roosevelt] who has walked up and down this land proclaiming their weakness and his all-sufficient powers to rescue them from perdition.”

The cholera epidemic in Russia has caused 83,613 deaths so far.

The US is building a 1,000-mile barbed wire fence along the border with Mexico. The NYT says there should be one along the Canadian border as well, to prevent all the smuggling generated by Taft’s tariffs.

F.P. Greve and wife Elsie, German nationals who live in NYC, were arrested as “suspicious persons” in Pittsburg because she was wearing men’s clothing (I think that just means trousers) and smoking while strolling down 5th Avenue. They were later released (after threatening to call the German ambassador) and issued a letter saying that they were all right and that she was wearing the clothes only to keep up with her husband’s walking speed.

Caption contest

The pope is visiting the UK, which he says is under the control of “atheist extremism” and “aggressive forms of secularism”, just like the Nazis, and he met the Queen of the Godless. And the Duke of Edinburgh, who probably exchanged wog jokes with him.

So what did they say?



The pope told the British press that pedophilia, which he did so much to cover up, is an illness which robs people of their free will. So that’s all right then. He said that his priority is to help the victims (not the priests, victims though they are of this horrible free-will-robbing illness) recover and “rediscover too their faith in the message of Christ.” Don’t know why he thinks they lost it; they weren’t the ones raping children, they were the children being raped.

Today -100: September 16, 1910: Of free candidates, drop-outs, and patronage

Woodrow Wilson, accepting the Democratic nomination for governor of New Jersey (offered by a party convention; no primaries in NJ), emphasizes that “I did not seek this nomination. It has come to me absolutely unsolicited” and that he has made no pledges or promises and is a “free candidate.”

Pres. Taft’s daughter Helen drops out of Bryn Mawr. No reason is given, but I can reveal that the reason is that her mother (also named Helen) had a stroke; I don’t believe the public knew of this. In a couple of years she’ll go back to Bryn Mawr to finish her BA, earn a doctorate in history at Yale, return to Bryn Mawr as a professor, eventually becoming head of the history department and dean.

The NYT claims that Taft has told friends, “I am not thinking of 1912; in fact, I don’t know that I care for a renomination. From the way things are drifting it may be that no Republican can be elected, save possibly one.” No points for guessing who that might be.

A letter is going around, supposedly written by Taft’s secretary, saying that while in the past Taft withheld patronage (post office and customs jobs, that sort of thing) from Republican insurgents in Congress in an attempt to coerce their votes for his legislative aims, the success of the insurgents in primaries and conventions has led him to reverse himself and he will in future grant patronage to all Republican congresscritters of whatever faction.

Today -100: September 15, 1910: Of zeppelins and Jesuits

The Zeppelin VI. explodes on the ground in Germany after 34 passenger trips. Injuries among the ground crew but no fatalities. Still, oh the humanity, eh? It was capable of reaching speeds up to 38 mph. I’ve lost track of how many dirigible accidents have been reported this year, but it’s a lot.

Portugal expels Jesuits (I’m unclear on whether this is all Jesuits in the country, or just one monastery.)

Mrs. Alice Stebbins Wells,
a former settlement worker, gets a new job: first policewoman in L.A. (and near as anyone can tell, the US). “I suppose my chief concern will be with young girls venturing into unsafe places,” Officer Wells said. She had a male officer as a “chaperon” and no gun.

Rogue virginity testers

Opening Sentence of a News Article of the Day: “Any event featuring Jacob Zuma, virginity tests and more than 25,000 bare-breasted maidens dancing for a polygamous king is unlikely to pass entirely without incident.”

Goodwill Zwelithini, the aforementioned polygamous king of the Zulus, “condemned ‘rogue’ virginity testers” and complained about pictures of the virginity-test-a-palooza showing up on the internet: “I was shocked when I received these pictures on my website. I have no doubt these pictures are going to be used to attack this solemn culture of ours. This is a very important tradition and culture and needs to be conducted with dignity and respect without abusing and violating the dignity and privacy of the maidens.” Because nothing says dignity and privacy like mass public inspection of genitalia.

Strategery

The Republicans want a chance to vote to make the Bush tax cuts permanent for all Americans, not just the non-rich. I say give it to them. Two bills. First up, a bill extending the tax cut for those earning over $250,000, then one for the rest. Everyone’s happy. If the R’s want to vote against the 2nd bill after the 1st one fails, let ‘em.

Today -100: September 14, 1910: Of mindless partisanship, primaries, and ears in bottles

The NYT is not happy at all with the divided state of the Republican Party and blames Teddy Roosevelt, who “has detached a great part of the Republicans from their old faith and their old leaders, he has filled their minds and hearts with a romantic, unreasoning, unquestioning faith in himself and in what he preaches.” The Times harkens back nostalgically to the good ol’ days of unreasoning, unquestioning party loyalty.

In the New York primaries, women suffragists acting as poll-observers in NYC were arrested, were promptly released by magistrates, and returned to their posts.

The story refers to a “Democratic polling place.” Evidently the parties voted separately. Quite possibly the primaries were organized by the parties, not the state.

Headline of the Day -100: “Ear in a Bottle as a Death Threat.” Labor conflicts were so much more... colorful... back then.

Thus scotching rumors on Fox that he was rooting for the Mooslim team

The White House website reports on a phone call:

The President called Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey just as the 2010 FIBA World Basketball Championship final game between the United States and Turkey was getting underway in Istanbul. The President congratulated the Prime Minister on the fact that Turkey has hosted an outstanding tournament. The President said he is rooting for the American team but that whoever wins both teams have played great basketball. The President also acknowledged the vibrancy of Turkey’s democracy as reflected in the turnout for the referendum that took place across Turkey today.

What a stimulating conversationalist (well, monologist, since Erdogan doesn’t seem to have gotten in a word edgewise) Obama is.

Today -100: September 13, 1910: Of Arkansas and Maine

Arizona may not after all be going Republican out of sheer gratitude for being given statehood, as Taft had assumed would happen. Dems win a majority of delegates (at least 36 out of 52) to the Constitutional Convention, pledging to include powers of initiative and referendum and recall, direct primaries and popular election of US senators.

For some reason Maine had its elections yesterday rather than in November. Democrats also sweep the Maine elections (governor, both houses of the Legislature, congresscritters), which is widely thought to be one of the signs of the apocalypse. Some of this is the result of the Rooseveltian revolt against the Republican Old Guard, some of it a reaction to the state government’s imposition of prohibition on localities that didn’t want it. The new governor-elect, Frederick Plaisted, is the son of Harris Plaisted, the last Democratic governor (1881-3). The new Legislature will elect the state’s first Dem senator since 1863 – and New England’s first since the late 1870s.

Terrorists really need a better retirement plan

An Israeli tank fired into Gaza, killing three “terrorists,” one of them 91 years old.

Today -100: September 12, 1910: Of alchemy

Headline of the Day -100: “Home of Alchemist Seized by Sheriff.”

Nicaraguan “president” Estrada suggests postponing presidential elections for a year.

Today -100: September 11, 1910: Of quitting, communion, and natural gas

Tennessee Governor Malcolm Patterson, in political trouble since pardoning the murderer of a former US senator (and 151 other murderers as well), decides not to run for re-election, with a large section of his Democratic Party threatening to go for a Republican – any Republican – rather than continue to be embarrassed by him. His announcement comes rather close to the general election.

In its fight with France’s public schools, the Vatican has decreed that first communion for French children will take place at age 7, i.e., before the school system has time to do its secularizing work. French Catholics are resisting doing it that early.

Conversationalist of the Day -100: NYT headline: “C.P. Taft in London. Declines to Talk about Anything but Natural Gas.” The president’s half-brother.