So long at the fair

The Iowa State Fair features pigs, cattle and other dumb animals.

Sharing a foot-long corn dog:




CAPTION CONTEST!


(Update: I just noticed: $6 for a corn dog? $6?)

Today -100: August 13, 1911: Of Jewish colonies, arbitration, and warplanes

200 Jewish families from Philadelphia will soon form a colony in Utah.

The Senate has stripped from the arbitration treaties with France and Britain their provisions for, um, arbitration. Specifically, they removed the power of the Joint High Commission to decide which disagreements would be arbitrated, and any arbitration would have to be approved by the Senate. In truth, this does sound like the Senate preserving its constitutional prerogatives, but the treaties, part of an attempt to create an international system that would prevent wars, would obviously be meaningless if so amended. Some senators expressed the fear that if the principle of arbitration became widespread, there might be treaties with China and Japan, and where would our precious racist immigration policies and exclusion of people of Asiatic races from public schools be then?

British aviator Claude Grahame-White says that the next big war will be decided by air power.

Republican Debate: Not going to eat Barack Obama’s dog food

Only Pawlenty and Bachmann seem to be wearing flag pins.

Michele B. does the “One. Term. President.” thing again.

Romney has spent his life in the private sector (I thought it was weird that Clinton scrubbed being a Rhodes scholar from his resumé in order not to appear all uppity, didn’t expect someone to pretend they’d never been a governor) and “understand[s] how jobs come and how they go,” especially the latter in any business he’s run. Says capitalism is about people (but then he thinks corporations are people. To be fair, Romney has to take the Turing test on a curve). “We’re inches away from no longer having a free economy.” He does not say how many inches.


GINGRICH PROBABLY WOULD: Romney on the debt ceiling bill: “Look, I’m not gonna eat Barack Obama’s dog food, all right?” Should Romney really still be bringing up dogs?

Ron Paul wants to put the militarism on the table.

Huntsman: “I intend to do exactly what I did as governor of the state of Utah,” adding, “Hey, can anyone remember what that was?”


REAL MEN DON’T COOK: Pawlenty: “I’ll offer a prize tonight to anybody in this auditorium or anyone watching on television, if you can find Barack Obama’s specific plan on any of those items, I will come to your house and cook you dinner. Or if you prefer, I’ll come to your house and mow your lawn. But in case Mitt wins, I’ll limit it to one acre.”

Santorum says the middle of America went to China, or something.

Now for the sexual tension portion of the debate, with Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann doing the Sam & Diane thing.

YES: Chris Wallace to Pawlenty: “Is [Bachmann] unqualified, or is she just beating you in the polls?”


SO SHE’S ACCOMPLISHED NOTHING, BUT IT’S A “WONDERFUL” NOTHING? Pawlenty on Bachmann: “She has done some wonderful things in her life but it is an indisputable fact that her record of accomplishment and results is nonexistent.”

Bachmann on Pawlenty: You’re Obama Obama Obama!

WHAT PEOPLE ARE LOOKING FOR: Bachmann: “People are looking for a champion. They want someone who has been fighting. ... I have a very consistent record of fighting against Barack Obama. That is what qualifies me as a fighter and a representative of the people.” But how is that a qualification for running a country?

NOW THIS IS A QUALIFICATION FOR RUNNING A COUNTRY: “I introduced the Lightbulb Freedom of Choice Act”.

Seriously, applause for that?


NOW THIS IS A QUALIFICATION FOR RUNNING A COUNTRY: Pawlenty: “she’s got a record of misstating and making false statements.”

WE’RE HOLDING OUT FOR ADAMANTIUM: Pawlenty, after noting that Bachmann has lost all her battles: “She said she’s got a titanium spine. It’s not her spine we’re worried about; it’s her record of results. If that’s your view of effective leadership with results, please stop, because you’re killing us.”

Bachmann: “I was at the tip of the spear fighting against the implementation of Obamacare in the United States Congress.” Heh heh, she said “tip of the spear.”


Romney: “I understand how the economy works.” He keeps talking about the “real economy.”

Gingrich calls a question about his Mickey Mouse campaign a “Mickey Mouse” question.

POLITICS IS EASY, COMEDY IS HARD: Herman Cain, asked about having said that the border needs a “twenty-foot barbed wire electrified fence,” said “America’s got to learn how to take a joke.”

Romney: “I was fortunate enough to be a governor that got an increase in the credit rating of my state at the same time we got a president who got a decrease in the credit rating of our nation. And that’s because our president simply doesn’t understand how to lead and how to grow an economy.” At the same time? Er, so he was governor last week?

Gov. Pawlenty regrets having supported a cigarette tax to pay for education, even though it was really a fee (a “health impact fee,” he called it at the time), and the courts said it’s really a fee, so there.

T-Paw also says Obama should come back from his “Cape Cod vacation.”


Bachmann was in the state legislature and really really opposed the cigarette tax, but voted for it because Pawlenty made a deal with “special interests” and “put in the same bill... a vote that would take away protections from the unborn”. She means the opposite, of course. Also, the “protections” in the bill were that pregnant women seeking abortions would have to be asked if they wanted the fetus to receive anesthesia before the procedure. (h/t TPM).

All the candidates would walk away from a deal that included spending cuts and tax increases in a ratio of 10:1.

Bachmann: if the government can force you to purchase health insurance, there is nothing the government cannot do.

OH NO, NOT MANDATORY MARRIAGE, SAVE US FROTHY: Santorum: “Michelle Bachmann says that she would go in and fight health care being imposed by states, but she wouldn’t go in and fight marriage being imposed by the states. That would be okay. We have Ron Paul saying oh, whatever the states want to do under the Tenth Amendment is fine. So if the states want to pass polygamy, that’s fine. If the states want to impose sterilization, that’s fine. No! Our country is based on moral laws, ladies and gentleman.”

Bachmann is late returning from the commercial break. I guess the timing on her ingenious plan to knock over a diamond merchant during the debate went a little bit awry. No such thing as a perfect crime, huh Michele?


Gingrich objects to a question about his complete reversal on Libya as a “gotcha question.” Says we need to rethink everything in the region. Which means he wants to come up with ten new nutty and completely contradictory ideas on the back of a napkin that he forgets about the next day.


Santorum clears up a geography question for Ron Paul: “Iran is not Iceland, Ron. Iran is a country that has been at war with us since 1979. Iran is a country that’s killed more men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan than the Iraqis and the Afghanistans [sic], Afghanistanis [sic] have.” Say what?

Paul responds that it actually started with the US support of the 1953 coup and 1979 was blow-back and we “just plain don’t mind our own business.”

Bachmann explains to Ron Paul (this is the “condescending to Ron Paul” portion of the debate) that terrorists don’t get Miranda rights and that Guantanamo Bay was responsible for Bin Laden being killed. She also explains to him that Iran is the center of all evil and she knows this because she sits on the House Select Committee on Intelligence (pause for snickering).

Ron Paul: “Who rules them a terrorist?”

Santorum says Ron Paul sees the world exactly like Obama does. Um, right. And that he won’t apologize for Iran having been free for a long time before the “mullahcracy.” He fails to say exactly when Iran was free. He does complain that Iran “tramples the rights of gays,” because if there’s one thing Ricky Santorum hates, it’s trampling the rights of gays.



Byron York asks Bachmann if she would be “submissive” to her husband, which some people think is a sexist question and I don’t. “[Wh]at submission means to us, if that’s what your question is, it means respect.” I’ll bet it does, I’ll bet it does.

I’m not sure what thesaurus she’s using, but submission in no way means respect.

Speaking of marriage, it’s gay marriage time. Romney says marriage should be determined at the federal level, because people move: “Marriage is a status, it’s not an activity.” Well, not the way Mrs. Romney does it (ba dum BUM).

Ron Paul doesn’t want the federal government having a marriage police.

I wonder what sort of uniform a federal marriage cop would wear?


Santorum says it sounds like Ron Paul says that if states want to legalize polygamy, they can. Evidently he’s no longer using the “man on dog” analogy.

Bachmann says she has “an unblemished record when it comes to this issue of man-woman marriage”. Hoo-kay then.

Santorum says it’s wrong that you can’t execute a rapist but you can abort a fetus conceived during rape. The child is an innocent victim. To be victimized twice is a horrible thing. (He means for the fetus; to victimize the actual rape victim twice with a forced pregnancy is of course a wonderful thing). “One violence is enough.”

Bachmann says she was right to oppose raising the debt ceiling and Standard & Poors has proven her right, because they said the US has no ability to pay its debts.

Today -100: August 12, 1911: Of mutinies and bad-ass pigs

The steamer Victorian arrives in Montreal from Liverpool and is met by the police, who arrest 57 stewards who had refused to serve meals. They are charged with mutiny. Evidently you can be charged with mutiny on a civilian passenger ship.

2,000 African-Americans are arriving in Denver for the 2nd annual convention of the National Negro Educational Congress, and are having trouble finding accommodation, as hotels and restaurants are refusing their reservations.

Headline of the Day -100: “Shark Killed by Pig.” Really. The shark had been harpooned and brought aboard a schooner, which for some reason had a pig as a mascot. His name is Dennis. The shark grabbed Dennis the Pig, but then Dennis tore off the shark’s jaw! It’s like the worst children’s book ever.

David Cameron’s statement the spot of bother in London: We will not let a violent few beat us

With riots on the mean streets of Tottenham and elsewhere in England (Scotland informs me that it would prefer if everyone stop talking about rioting in the UK), David Cameron returned from his vacation, where his biggest problem was that he was caught stiffing a waitress, recalled Parliament and made a statement to it today.

NOT JUST A LITTLE UNACCEPTABLE: “What we have seen on the streets of London and in other cities across our country is completely unacceptable”.

WHAT WE WILL NOT ALLOW: “We will not allow a culture of fear to exist on our streets.” What exactly is a “culture of fear” when it’s at home?

SIMPLY PREPOSTEROUS (IT’S JUST NOT A TORY SPEECH UNLESS SOMETHING IS DESCRIBED AS SIMPLY PREPOSTEROUS): “It is simply preposterous for anyone to suggest that people looting in Tottenham at the weekend, still less three days later Salford, were in any way doing so because of the death of Mark Duggan.” I’m not going to psychoanalyze people based on some CCTV footage, but I don’t see anger over the police shooting yet another dark-skinned man and then lying about it, and opportunistic thieving as being mutually exclusive. Both are the result of alienation, social exclusion, state hostility and “austerity” measures.

WHAT STEALING FLAT-SCREEN TELEVISIONS WAS ABOUT: “The young people stealing flat screen televisions and burning shops was not about politics or protest, it was about theft.”

He defended publishing photos of looters and “no phoney human rights concerns” will stop him. Phew, because I was worried that phoney human rights concerns would stop him.

140 PUNCHES OR LESS: “And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them.” He is considering “whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.”

“I have also asked the police if they need any other new powers.” I’m guessing they’ll say no. Cops always think they have quite enough powers, thank you very much.

WELL AND TRULY: “The fight back has well and truly begun.” We will fight them in the Miss Selfridges, we will fight them in the Boots... Every British prime minister thinks he’s bloody Winston Churchill.

COL. PICKERING: HAVE YOU NO MORALS, MAN?
ALFRED DOOLITTLE: CAN’T AFFORD THEM, GOVERNOR. NEITHER COULD YOU IF YOU WAS AS POOR AS ME. (George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion, 1912)
“[T]here is a major problem in our society with children growing up not knowing the difference between right and wrong. This is not about poverty, it’s about culture.” There’s that word again.
“A culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority, and says everything about rights but nothing about responsibilities.” Because it just wouldn’t be a Tory speech about the lower orders without some mention of how everyone talks about rights and no one talks about responsibilities. “In too many cases, the parents of these children – if they are still around – don’t care where their children are or who they are with, let alone what they are doing.” Says the man who’s been merrily cutting every youth and sports program in sight.

WHAT WE NEED: “We need more discipline in our schools.” I didn’t see the speech, but I’m assuming every male Tory MP put a paper over his lap to disguise the stiffy brought about by any mention of the word “discipline.”

“In short, all the action necessary to help mend our broken society.”

TERRITORIAL, HIERARCHICAL AND INCREDIBLY VIOLENT – ISN’T THAT THE TORY PARTY MOTTO? “At the heart of all the violence sits the issue of the street gangs. Territorial, hierarchical and incredibly violent, they are mostly composed of young boys, mainly from dysfunctional homes.” David, for example, was sent away to Eton.

AND IF THERE’S ONE THING WE ENGLISH HATE, IT’S EMOTIONS: “Mr Speaker, in the past few days we have seen a range of emotions sweep this country: anger, fear, frustration, despair, sadness – and finally a determined resolve that we will not let a violent few beat us.”

FOR EXAMPLE, MANY OF OUR YOUNG PEOPLE ARE DESTROYING PROPERTY AND PERPETRATING VIOLENCE IN THE BRITISH ARMY IN AFGHANISTAN: “We need to show the world, which has looked on appalled, that the perpetrators of the violence we have seen on our streets are not in any way representative of our country – nor of our young people.”

OR WE COULD PLAY TO OUR STRENGTHS AND INTRODUCE ARSON AND LOOTING EVENTS IN THE OLYMPICS: “And a year away from the Olympics, we need to show them the Britain that doesn’t destroy, but that builds; that doesn’t give up but stands up; that doesn’t look back, but always forwards.” Really? He really had to mention the Olympics? At least he didn’t use the phrase Big Society.

I’m no doctor, but isn’t pregnant women not spontaneously bursting into flames a GOOD thing?

LAT: “Pregnant California Women Show High Levels of Flame Retardant.”

Today -100: August 11, 1911: Of mutinies, arbitration, trolleys, and losers

The Spanish government claims that the 26 sailors shot for mutiny were part of a Republican revolutionary plot.

There have been rumors that Teddy Roosevelt is working behind the scenes to stop ratification of the arbitration treaties with Britain and France. (Spoiler alert: He is.)

Oh good, another street car strike atrocity: a Pittsburgh (motto: Now with An H!!!) trolley drives over a bottle of nitroglycerine, partially blowing up, but somehow without any of the twenty-some-odd passengers getting killed.

The Georgia Legislature calls on Congress to abrogate the 1832 treaty with Russia because of its refusal to honor American passports held by Jews. Yes, the Peach State is all about upholding the rights of Jews.

South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease revokes the licenses of three notary publics who supported the charge of a railroad ticket agent that Blease had tried to cut in line and then insulted her when she told him to wait his turn.

Headline of the Day -100: “WED MRS. LOSER AND $300,000.” Mrs. Loser marries her chauffeur.

Today -100: August 10, 1911: Of milk, maneuvers, and elevated officials

I believe I mentioned that President Taft’s cow would be a special exhibit at the International Dairy Show in Milwaukee. Well, her milk will be sold at 50¢ for a small bottle. Souvenir milk – who came up with that brilliant idea?

Orange, NJ bans Carrie Davenport from teaching in Orange schools. She is black.

The Texas Legislature shouts down a proposal that Booker T. Washington be allowed to speak in the Capitol.

Airplanes will participate in German military maneuvers for the first time.

Headline of the Day -100: “CHOOSE ELEVATED OFFICIALS.” The guys in charge of Chicago’s El. So it’s the train tracks that are elevated, not the officials.

Today -100: August 9, 1911: Of restored h’s, mutinies, duels, and states

The long national nightmare is over: The spelling of Pittsburg is being changed back to Pittsburgh. That decision was made by the Post Office (or the United States Geographic Board?). The city had been demanding its h back for the last 20 years.

There was a mutiny a couple of days ago aboard a Spanish battleship anchored off Tangier. 26 sailors have been court-martialed and executed.

An East Chicago man who challenged another man to a duel (both have Serbian names) is sentenced to a fine, jail and, interestingly, disfranchisement, under a law against challenging someone to a duel, the first time the Illinois law has been used.

The bill for statehood for Arizona and New Mexico passes the Senate 53-18. An attempt to strike out Arizona’s provision for the recall of judges was voted down, but AZ will be required to vote on that provision separately from the referendum on the entire constitution. However, it will be admitted to the Union however that vote goes.

Quote of the Day

If you’re the lieutenant governor of Missouri, Peter Kinder, and you’re planning to run for governor in 2012, this is probably not what you want to have to send your spokesmodel out to say: “I really highly doubt the lieutenant governor is going to a bar where they don’t wear pants on a night when they don’t wear pants.”

Today -100: August 8, 1911: Of women’s games, stilts, and cleaning up

The mayor of Hunnewell, Kansas, Ella Wilson, is in a death-struggle with the all-male city council. They won’t confirm any of her appointments and she won’t sign any of the ordinances they pass. She says she would quit if she could, and that “politics is not a woman’s game,” but instead is working with the governor to oust the council.

Headline of the Day -100: “FIREMEN FIGHT BLAZE IN HOUSE ON STILTS.” Sadly, it was the house (the Jamaica Bay Yacht Club) which was on stilts, not the firemen.

Pathé begins the first newsreel in America, Pathé’s Weekly.

NYT Index Typo of the Day: “TY COBB CLEANS UP WITH BABES FULL.”

Today -100: August 7, 1911: Of crap shooters, slavery, trolleys, and icebergs

Haiti’s revolutionary army proclaims as president one Gen. Cincinnatus Leconte, the great-grandson of a previous Emperor of Haiti. Spoiler alert: contrary to his name, he did not return to his plow, but was blowed up in 1912.

Topic Sentence of the Day -100: A story headlined “Negro is Killed By His Own Pistol” begins “Moses Hill, a negro [okay, we get it already: he’s a negro], who had a reputation as a crap shooter, met his death by his own hand as a result of that talent yesterday morning.” No, “crap shooter” doesn’t mean he was a really bad shot but rather that three white men he beat playing craps decided to beat the crap out of him and he drew a gun. My, the word crap is so versatile, isn’t it?

Mississippi’s Democratic primary (all-white, of course) last week chose former governor James Vardaman as candidate for US Senate. Many black people are now fleeing the state, believing that when he is elected, slavery will be restored. To be fair to Vardaman – the white supremacist shit – he only advocates repealing the 14th and 15th Amendments, not the 13th.

Why are street car strikes always so violent? The one in Des Moines has ended because a court ordered the reinstatement of the conductor whose dismissal was the cause of the strike, but another one in Brooklyn/Coney Island features the usual wrecking of cars, beating of scabs and terrorizing of passengers. The street car operators want an increase in pay from 23¢ an hour to 25¢.

Interesting details of the Columbia’s collision with the iceberg.

Today -100: August 6, 1911: Of sabers, Confederate nickels, Doc Hazzard, trolleys, and patents

In Berlin, a burglar kills a cop trying to arrest him. New orders have gone out to the Berlin PD concerning the use of service revolvers: they can now use them first, rather than having to try their sabers first. To reiterate: cops in Berlin had sabers.

More Berlin police news: police have issued a warning against some Confederate bills that have been circulating, brought back by an artisan who was living in the US until recently.

After a patient dies while taking the starvation cure at the Hazzard Institution – she can’t say she wasn’t warned – Dr. Linda Hazzard is arrested for killing patients to take their money.

Rioting by striking street car workers in Des Moines succeeds in making every scab flee the city.

The US issues its one millionth patent: a puncture-proof tire. (Update: Oh, actually no. 1m as issued by the Patent Office since it was created in 1836. There were 9,957 issued 1790-1836.)

If you hop while eating BBQ, you’re going to get very messy, or am I missing the point?

Fox News complains that Obama’s birthday “Hip-Hop BBQ Didn’t Create Jobs.”

Speaking of Hip-Hop birthdays, the day Katrina hit New Orleans...

Today -100: August 5, 1911: Of alphabets, poltroons, Reciprocity, and icebergs

Rep. Fred Jackson (R-Kansas) introduces a bill calling on Taft to call a conference of all nations to consider the creation of a Universal Scientific Alphabet.

German ultra-nationalists are worried that the government may compromise with France over Morocco. The Pan-German Post calls Kaiser Wilhelm “The Valorous Poltroon.” What is the German for poltroon, and how do you spell it in the Universal Scientific Alphabet?

Update: Google Translate says the German for poltroon is feigling, which seems to me to capture the literal meaning but not the tone.

President Taft names his new horse Reciprocity, after the Canadian trade treaty. There’s probably a joke in that somewhere.

In a freak accident that will never be repeated, the passenger liner Columbia, traveling from Glasgow to New York, hits an iceberg. No one was hurt.

Somebody needs a better travel agent

White House press releases today:

On Tuesday, August 9, the President will travel to Interstate Moving Services in Springfield, Virginia, to announce first of their kind fuel efficiency standards for work trucks, buses, and other heavy duty vehicles.

On Thursday, August 11, the President will travel to Holland, Michigan, to tour the Johnson Controls Inc. advanced battery facility.

The Vice President will depart for China, Mongolia, and Japan on August 16, 2011.

Today -100: August 4, 1911: Of three-time losers, arbitration, monkeys, and cows

William Jennings Bryan says he will never run for president again. And he won’t.

The US signs arbitration treaties with both Britain and France. Even matters of “honor” are to be settled through arbitration.

Upton Sinclair announces that he plans to write a book about the horrors of prisons. What on earth did they do to him during his 18 hours at the New Castle Workhouse?

Headline of the Day -100 (LAT): “A Monkey Chews Gum.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Taft to Exhibit Cow.”

Unfortunate Headline of the Day

AP: “Heather Mills: Journalist Told Me I’d Been Hacked.”

Today -100: August 3, 1911: Of enlistments, extinctions, women lawyers, menacing revolutions, and useless husbands

There is a controversy in the US Army over whether army enlistments should be short, with a high turnover so that a large number of people can be trained and then called up if needed, or conversely whether enlistments should be increased to five years.

The chief health officer of Richmond, Virginia, notes that negroes have a higher death rate than whites and predicts they will become extinct in the 21st century.

Arabella (“Belle”) Mansfield, the first woman admitted to the bar in the US (Iowa, 1868), although she never actually practiced law, dies. She was dean of the College of Arts at DePauw University.

Well that was fast: “New Revolution Menaces Mexico.”

Condescending Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “They’ll Give Up Candy For Sake of Suffrage.” California suffragists are fund-raising for the October state referendum on women’s suffrage through a “self-denial week.”

Headline of the Day -100: “KILLED USELESS HUSBAND.; Wife Gives Excuse That She Could Not Make a Man of Him.” But she could make a dead man of him – it’s compromises like this that make marriages work.

The Southern Pacific Railroad will no longer hire women. They get married just when they’re becoming useful.

Because nothing empowers women like telling them what they can and can’t wear

Italy is joining other European countries in planning to ban the burqa with a new law requiring women’s faces to be visible. Since the proposal comes from Silvio Berlusconi’s party, it will probably also require their breasts to be visible.