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First Obama shows us a birth certificate, then a death certificate.
I’m not sorry to see bin Laden dead, but I can’t share in the triumphalism currently flooding the airwaves, nor do I feel any sense of relief, since I don’t expect this to change anything.
(Triumphalism in Obama’s address: “tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to.” Dude, it was killing a dude on dialysis, not the freaking moon landing. Though it did take as long to accomplish.)
I could have done without Obama’s use of the word justice – “bring him to justice,” “justice has been done.” This is George Bush’s definition of justice, a shooting without a trial. It might be justice in a moral sense, but from the standpoint of a state – the only standpoint a head of state should adopt – the phrase “justice has been done” should only follow a judicial process.
Obama: “His demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.” Because nothing says peace and human dignity like sending soldiers into a foreign country guns blazing.
Speaking of peace and human dignity, this happened 8 years ago today:
Following NATO’s attempted assassination-from-above of Qaddafi that killed his son and three grandsons, mobs have attacked the American, British, French and Italian embassies in Tripoli. A British official called the attacks “a very strong breach of international protocol,” an example of British understatement made all the more impressive by the fact that he was on fire at the time.
New Jersey’s new governor, one Woodrow Wilson, will take a four-week speaking tour of the Western states, but claims not to be running for any higher office.
The Mexico City Express which arrived in San Antonio at 2:30 pm yesterday -100 (the only line still open between the capital and the United States) was stopped ten different times by rebels looking for federal soldiers.
Who will be the first to weaponize aircraft? The problem is that light-weight 1911 airplanes can be destabilized by the recoil of guns. Krupp has just patented a self-propelling aerial torpedo for use against a “hostile balloon.”
Yesterday, Qaddafi called for a cease-fire and negotiations with NATO. Today, NATO killed his son and several of his grandchildren. A simple “No” would have sufficed.
The Colorado Legislature votes to dig a tunnel through the Rockies. The NYT seems to think that the most important thing about this story is that the bill passed a close vote in the lower house due to the votes of two women legislators.
Minnesota abolishes the death penalty.
The NYT updates the situation in Mexico: the government is fuuuuuuuucccccckkkkked. The military is losing or on the defense everywhere. “The patriotic efforts of the members of Congress to arouse the conservative sentiment throughout the county to the support of the Government is largely without effect, because most of those gentlemen have no local standing or influence. They have spent their whole lives in the capital. The case of Deputy Bulnes is a typical one. Although he has represented Lower California for twenty years, he has never even visited his constituency.”
The queen of England has banned hobble skirts and other tight skirts from court. Not that you could curtsy in one anyway.
Last month, doctors in Libya claimed to have found Viagra in the pockets of some of Qaddadi’s soldiers. And you know what that means, don’t you? Don’t you? Well, UN Ambassador Susan Rice does. This week she told the UN Security Council that Qaddafi is giving his troops Viagra to encourage them to engage in mass rape.
(Asked to back up the Viagra claim or to offer any evidence of sexual assaults by Libyan troops, State Dept spokesmodel Jake Sullivan declined.)
The Voter ID bill Texas Gov. Rick “Good Hair” Perry wants won’t let people use college photo ID cards, but will let them use handgun licenses.
Taylorism. Frederick Taylor holds a demonstration of “scientific management” at Carnegie Hall. He showed how 30 girls in a bicycle factory can do the work of 100 in less time. Taylor bemoans the short-sighted trade unions for opposing putting 70 girls out of work through scientific management. For example – and watch out for one of the greatest phrases in the history of the English language – “When my friend [Frank Bunker] Gilbreth worked out his philosophy of bricks he ran against the unions.”
Headline: “Russia Grants Privilege to Jews.” Recently Russia’s been expelling Jews from the cities and restricting their education, so it’s good to see them being granted an entirely new privilege. Jews in Siberia will be allowed to use the curative waters of Minusinsk for up to two months, provided they have a medical certificate and don’t engage in trade while they are taking the cure.
So the British will be voting on whether to hold elections under the Alternative Vote system. The Tories, currently running Britain despite having received just 36% of the votes in the last general election, like the current system just fine and say that AV, in which voters rank candidates according to preference, is simply too confusing for the poor, stupid British people (Jimmy Carr points out that AV is just basically a game of fuck-marry-kill) (although he called it shag-marry-kill, which is just adorable).
Anyway, I got an email from the Conservative Party chairthing which has this convincing sentence: “So if, like me, like Churchill, like many leading historians, sports stars and scientists, you know that AV would be a disaster for our democracy...”
(The other big news story in Britain is that at Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron adopted a line from an insurance commercial and told Labour MP Angela Eagle, who had just pointed out that he had told an untruth, “calm down, dear.”) (Cameron says the furore over this proves that socialists have no sense of humor.)
The House votes on a reapportionment bill, expanding the House from 391 to 433 (435 if and when Arizona and New Mexico become states). That would be one rep per 211,877 people. This is the last time the size of the House was increased, as was done in every previous decade (every previous decade also saw the accession of new states). (Historical oddity: after the 1920 census, there was no reapportionment. Not sure why; check back here in ten years.)
Reapportionment of districts will be decided by the states as usual; the D’s voted down an amendment to have it done by the Department of Commerce and Labor and another one which would have allowed for referenda for those states so inclined. Republicans from Democratic-dominated Kentucky and Missouri complain that gerrymandered Democratic congressional districts in their states have much smaller populations than Republican ones, and propose several amendments to correct that, all of which fail.
Rep. Victor Berger, Socialist from Wisconsin, proposed a joint resolution for a constitutional amendment to abolish the Senate, which he described as “an obstructive and useless body, a menace to the liberties of the people and an obstacle to social growth; a body many of the members of which are the representatives neither of a State nor of its people, but solely of certain predatory combinations”. Berger may be disciplined for violating the House rule against telling the truth about criticizing the Senate.
France announces that its military intervention in Morocco is necessary to protect foreigners at Fez, re-establish order, and protect the sovereignty of the sultan. Isn’t it nice of them to help out like that?
In other North African colonial news, Britain is rumored to be planning to send Sir Mathew Nathan to Egypt as its new Resident. Or as the NYT puts it, “Jew May Rule Egypt.”
Headline of the Day -100: “Value of Fingers and Toes.” In Lake County Superior Court, an employee at the Standard Steel Car Works who lost four fingers in an industrial accident was awarded $100, and another man got $500 for five toes.
President Taft is visiting New York City. Last night he attended a dinner of newspaper publishers, a dinner of Methodists, and a dinner in honor of retired Congressman J. Van Vechten Olcott.
Headline Expletive of the Day -100: “Bosh, Says Taft of Annexation.” At, I believe, his second dinner of the evening. He again denied plans to annex Canada. Canada must be feeling either relieved or kind of insulted by the constant repetitions of how the US is just not that into them.
The Dutch seize an American possession, Palmas Island, part of the Philippines. But the US doesn’t plan to object because the island is considered valueless. Don’t know what the 50 or so residents of the island feel about that. Hurt, is my guess. The issue went to arbitration in the 1920s, when Palmas was awarded to the Netherlands. Today it is still part of Indonesia, although closer geographically to the Philippines.
Canada may start banning the immigration of African-Americans on the grounds that they can’t adapt to the cold climate and are therefore likely to become public charges.
Headline of the Day -100: “Kitchener in Robes at Last.” Lord Kitchener takes his seat in the House of Lords for the first time since being ennobled 12 years ago.
Madero didn’t have the authority to agree to a meaningful truce after all. Other rebel leaders continue to fight.
ProtectMarriage, the people who brought us Prop. 8, California’s 2008 anti-gay-marriage initiative, are demanding that the ruling against the proposition be set aside on the grounds of the judge’s bias, not because he’s gay – no they certainly would never suggest such a thing – but because he’s in a long-term relationship with another dude. If Judge Walker were having one-night stands with a different pickup from a leather bar every night, they would be okay with that. And a little bit aroused.
ProtectMarriage do not say in their appeal whether judges in heterosexual marriages, or indeed in long-term heterosexual relationships that might lead to marriage, should also recuse themselves.
Another year, another “Armenian Remembrance Day,” the term Obama uses for Armenian GENOCIDE Remembrance Day. Again, he uses the words massacre and atrocity, and the Armenian term Meds Yeghern (great tragedy), but not genocide, never genocide, and again he uses the passive voice: “In 1915, 1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to their death”. By whom? He does not say. Possibly by a Martian invasion. Possibly by leprechauns. He talks about the need to learn from history, but he’s awfully vague about what that history is.
My favorite euphemism for genocide – “common history”: “I support the courageous steps taken by individuals in Armenia and Turkey to foster a dialogue that acknowledges their common history.”
And what should they do after this dialogue? They should “rebuild bridges of understanding toward a better tomorrow.” So get right on that, guys.
Naturally, Turkey complained about the mere acknowledgment that Armenians died, saying that Obama “distorts the historical facts. ... One-sided statements that interpret controversial historical events by a selective sense of justice prevent understanding of the truth.” Damn that selective sense of justice, always getting Obama into trouble and hilarious hijinks!
France is using some unrest in Fez as a pretext to land troops and turn Morocco into a French colony.
Los Angeles Assistant District Attorney W J Ford is arrested in Indianapolis for kidnapping for his part in the apprehension of John McNamara for the LA Times bombing, and they’re looking for the LA Times’s private detective as well.
The terms of the armistice in Mexico: all combatants stay where they are, not reinforcing their positions; work on fortifications, railroad repair, etc to be suspended; provisions can be brought into besieged Juarez (but not booze).
The Mexican rebels cut the last remaining railroad route to the US, because it was being used to move government troops. The rebels had an understanding with the railroad company that it was not to do such a thing if it wanted to keep operating.
Disappointing Headline of the Day -100: “Too Noisy in Deaf School.” A couple of employees like to party.
Michigan state senator Bruce Caswell proposes that the $79 a year the state spends on clothing for children in foster care only be spent in thrift shops for second-hand clothing, saying that when he was a kid, “I never had anything new.”
Poor Bruce. I propose that we rectify this by all chipping in to get Bruce Caswell everything, and I mean everything, new in the Sears catalog.
Inserted anally.
Madero agrees to an armistice, without Díaz having agreed to resign. Madero is now denying that he ever demanded that. Whether all of Madero’s lieutenants actually consider the armistice binding on them is another matter.
The NYT notes that Madero has been pretty much out of the loop, not having seen a newspaper in his camp for a month, and has just learned, for example, of the negotiations between his father, the Mexican ambassador to the US, and Finance Minister Limantour.
Rebels capture Acapulco.
NY has a parade of trucks. The article has pictures of 1911 oil trucks, armored bank cars, dump trucks, mail wagons etc., if you’re into that sort of thing.
However, horses were still in big use in commercial deliveries (but losing ground: another article compares the cost per mile and finds autos substantially cheaper), which is doubtless why horse theft is bigger in 1911 New York City than in the Far West.
Germans are planning to build a really, really big dirigible, capable of carrying 200 passengers, with cabins, a promenade, dining saloon, an onboard newspaper, and parachutes for every passenger. They will carry passengers across the Atlantic, which will take 3 days, for a fare of $200.
The McNamara brothers, union officials, are arrested by private detectives for the dynamiting of the LA Times building last October, along with one Ortie E. McGonigle, which sounds like the name of a W.C. Fields character. A rather large quantity of dynamite was found as well.
(Update: no fun: later editions correct the name to Ortie McManigle.)
The lower house of the Colorado Legislature votes to ban cigarettes.
