Today -100: September 29, 1911: Of encyclopedias

The American Federation of Catholic Societies comes out against the new edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Evidently, all the articles on religion weren’t written by Catholics.

It’s very hard to separate liberty from some economic reforms

Obama answered some questions from Hispanics. Asked about Cuba, he more or less said that he would lift sanctions if it released political prisoners and had human rights. What, asked one of the hosts, they could still have a socialist economy? Obama, realizing his mistake, quickly backtracked: “Well, it’s very hard to separate liberty from some economic reforms.” Everyone would have to have a right to start their own business, for example. “So some elements of freedom are included in how an economic system works.” So it’s official: Obama thinks “freedom” must include capitalism.

Not addressed: the program under which the Border Patrol now transports Mexicans caught crossing the border illegally to some other random part of the border thousands of miles away before pushing them back over the border, just to be dicks.

Today -100: September 28, 1911: Of ultimata

40,000 Italian troops are off the coast of Libya. Italy has sent an ultimatum to the Turks that unless they agree to an Italian occupation of Tripoli, Italy will occupy Tripoli.

I read David Brooks so you don’t have to

Hah! Just kidding; I’m not gonna read David Brooks.

Today -100: September 27, 1911: Of monopolies

US Steel says that it’s not an illegal monopoly and won’t dissolve itself “either voluntarily or at the demand of the Government.”

Today -100: September 26, 1911: Of lost Liberty

The French battleship Liberté blows up and sinks at Toulon, the explosion also damaging several nearby battleships. 300 or so people are killed, including 200 of the crew and people on other ships and in the port.

Before:


After:



The Liberté’s captain, who was not on board when it exploded, was Louis Jaurès, whose brother Jean was leader of the Socialist Party and a pacifist MP who was assassinated a couple of days before World War I began.

President Taft gives a speech to the National Conservation Congress in Kansas City. He says that agricultural productivity must be increased if the US is to feed its ever-increasing population. But he is optimistic that the US can support the 200,000,000 Americans that he predicts might exist in 50 years, although he does not say if that’s 200 million Taft-sized Americans or the economy-sized ones.

The State Dept says it doesn’t care if Italy invades and takes over Libya, as long as American traders still have rights under the Treaty of Tripoli (1796-7).

The Denver Evening Post suggests that the Philippines be sold to Japan, since the Filipinos have proven too uncivilized to ever be given self-government.

In Belfast, a conference of Unionist leaders pledges not to acknowledge any Irish government established under Home Rule and to create a provisional government for Northern Ireland in the event of Home Rule.

Today -100: September 25, 1911: Of trains, navies, and exercising self-restraint

Booker T. Washington charters a Pullman car for his sole use to avoid Jim Crow laws while traveling in Texas.

The NYT seems to think that in any war, Italy, with its larger, more modern navy, would definitely beat the Ottoman Empire, which has an army 1 million men larger.

The timing of the Italian move on North Africa derives from a claim that it deserves to be “compensated” for France’s achieving exclusive dominance over Morocco by being given similar status in Tripoli.

Some reverend dude giving a sermon against booze read out a letter from President Taft: “The excessive use of intoxicating liquor is the cause of great poverty and crime... Each person must determine for himself the course he will take in reference to his taste and appetites; but those who exercise the self-restraint to avoid it altogether are on the safer and wiser side.” Well, if anyone knows about exercising self-restraint, it’s William Howard Taft.

Today -100: September 24, 1911: Of war moves and gay New York

No war in Europe! France and Germany agree on Africa carve-up: France gets Morocco, with safeguards for German businesses, and Germany gets 150,000 square miles of the French Congo. Germans are evidently pretty pissed off at Britain for siding with France, which ensured that Germany didn’t get nearly as much out of its gunboat diplomacy as it expected.

War in Europe? Italy prepares two army corps and a naval squadron for war with the Ottoman Empire over Libya.

Headline of the Day -100: “New York Too Gay For Tampa Sheriff.” A Tampa deputy – nicknamed Babe – arrived to take an embezzler back to Florida, but decided to have a little fun on the town first. More than a week later, Tampa had to send another deputy, a teetotaler this time, to bail out the first deputy and bring them both back.

Republican Debate: Sex is not an issue. It should not be an issue. Leave it alone. Keep it to yourself,

I couldn’t find a transcript for the Republican debate last night, so I thought I was off the hook but oh look, here it is, sigh. The debate was sponsored by Google and the Florida Republican Party. Make your own joke about old people and computers.


Perry brags of tort reform that “told personal injury trial lawyers, don’t come to Texas”. Evidently no personal injury trial lawyers are Texans, they all sneak in from elsewhere, possibly Mexico.

234 EXECUTIONS? Perry: “People understand that the state of Texas, during the last decade, something special happened there.”



Romney says Obama has hurt the middle class, but when asked to define where the category of the rich begins, absolutely refused: “I don’t try and define who’s -- who’s rich and who’s not rich,” adding, but if you buy a McMansion as a vacation home, then knock it down to build a bigger one, you might just be... a completely regular guy, who’s middle class just like you. JUST. LIKE. YOU.


Asked how much people should pay in taxes, Michele Bachmann said zero. “You should get to keep every dollar that you earn. ... Obviously, we have to give money back to the government so that we can run the government, but we have to have a completely different mindset. And that mindset is, the American people are the genius of this economy. It certainly isn’t government that’s the genius.” Um, right.

Oh, and Obama has “destroyed the economy.”

Santorum wants to ban collective bargaining by public-sector unions.

Gingrich opposes extending unemployment benefits without mandatory “training.” “I believe deeply, people should not get money for doing nothing,” adding that he prefers giving people Tiffany jewelry in exchange for blowjobs.

Perry: “For those people that are approaching Social Security, they don’t have anything in the world to worry about,” adding, except for their approaching deaths, of course.

Romney and Perry each accuse the other of retreating from things they wrote in their own books. Next week, they’ll be discussing The Bridges of Madison County. Romney adds, “And I believe that the people of this country can read my book and see exactly what it is,” adding, except for people who went to school in Texas, obviously.


Governor Romney, is Obama a socialist? He won’t say, but “what President Obama is, is a big-spending liberal. And he takes his political inspiration from Europe and from the socialist democrats in Europe. Guess what? Europe isn’t working in Europe. It’s not going to work here.” Remember, Romney knows all about Europe, from all that time he spent failing to get French people to convert to Mormonism.

Romney makes a widdle joke: “I only spent four years as a governor. I didn’t inhale.” Really, the RomneyBot’s manufacturers should have made him more life-like.

Santorum, near as I can make him out, calls for the abolition of state education, because it interferes with parental responsibility to educate their children.

Everyone is against the federal government having any role in education whatsoever. Most say they would shut down the Department of Education, no one says they would keep it open. And they want school choice and vouchers.

Romney says the talk about smaller classrooms being a good thing is just propaganda by the teachers’ unions. He says as president he will stand up to the national teachers’ unions, which is odd because he just said that we need to get the federal government out of education.

Romney says he “just can’t follow” Perry’s argument that children of undocumented aliens should be educated. He calls it a magnet.


Perry says “if you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart,” risking offending the largest constituency in the Republican party, those without hearts.

Romney on Israel: “You don’t allow an inch of space to exist between you and your friends and allies.” Kinky. “The right course -- if you disagree with an ally, you talk about it privately. But in public, you stand shoulder-to-shoulder with your allies.” So foreign policy should be secretive and hypocritical and hidden from the American people. No change there, then.

Oo, a hypothetical, everyone loves a hypothetical: what would you do if the Pakistan’s nuclear weapons fell into the hands of the Taliban. Perry says that he would already have built “a relationship in that region,” which Obama hasn’t. What, military aid and drone attacks aren’t a relationship?

Perry refers to Pakistan as “the Pakistani country.”

Also, he’d sell weapons to India. And Taiwan. Because that would totally help if the Taliban got nukes.

Santorum thinks we should establish relationships with exiled President Musharraf, and then would respond to the hypothetical, which he reinterprets as a Taliban coup in Pakistan, by invading Pakistan and re-installing Musharraf as dictator.


THIS IS MY RIFLE, THIS IS MY GUN: After the famous booing by the audience of the gay soldier, Santorum said: “I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.” Except jerking off to prisoners of war stacked in naked human pyramids, obviously. “And the fact that they’re making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to -- to -- and removing ‘don’t ask/don’t tell’ I think tries to inject social policy into the military.” (Heh, he said “inject”). Pretending that gay people don’t exist and ordering them to repress evidence of their sexuality is, I guess, somehow, not injecting social policy into the military. Note that Santorum stalled out when he tried to say what “special privilege” gay people would be getting. He said said that in the future, “we would move forward in conformity with what was happening in the past. Which was, sex is not an issue. It should not be an issue. Leave it alone. Keep it to yourself whether you are heterosexual or homosexual.” (Heh, he said keep “it” to yourself.)



Ron Paul: “nobody can out-do me on respect for life. I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with life.”

Applause line:

WALLACE: Mr. Cain, you are a survivor of stage 4 colon and liver cancer. And you say, if Obamacare had been...

(APPLAUSE)

Given how the audiences at these things have been behaving, I can only assume that they were applauding stage 4 colon and liver cancer.

Bachmann denies ever having said that the HPV vaccine causes retardation. “I didn’t make that claim nor did I make that statement.” She adds that Perry “gave parental rights to a big drug company.”

HOW PERRY WILL ALWAYS ERR: Perry says he “erred on the side of life” and he will always err on the side of life.

WHAT NO OTHER PEOPLE ON EARTH DO: Romney: “We place our hand over our heart during the playing of the national anthem. No other people on Earth do that.”

WAY TO MAKE FUN OF A DUDE WITH ALZHEIMER’S, FROTHY: Santorum: “The last words Ronald Reagan said as president of the United States in his farewell address, he was concerned about the future of our country because we were forgetting who we were, didn’t remember what America was really all about.”



Johnson made a dog shit joke.

Asked who among the other candidates they’d pick as their running mate, Johnson said Paul, Santorum said Gingrich, Gingrich called the question a “Hollywood game,” adding, “I don’t have any idea who I would pick as the vice presidential nominee.” He’s really thought through this whole running-for-president thing, hasn’t he? Perry indulges in some slash fiction: “I don’t know how you would do this, but if you could take Herman Cain and mate him up with Newt Gingrich, I think you would have a couple of really interesting guys to work with.” Um, right. Paul, Romney and Bachmann refuse to answer, or to say who they’d like to see pair up. Huntsman says he’d pick Cain, because they have similar taste in ties (yellow).

Today -100: September 23, 1911: Of ready navies, bumpy vacations, crispy aeronauts, and reluctant presidents

Bellicose Headline of the Day -100: “Italian Navy Ready for War.” With Turkey if it refuses to let Italy establish a “protectorate” over Libya (as they did not then call the Ottoman province of Tripoli).

Thomas Edison is enjoying a vacation in Germany. He declares himself feeling much improved. Not so improved is the child his car ran over and killed (the report does not say if he was driving).

At an air show or county fair or something in Troy, Ohio, aviator Frank Miller, who had been reluctant to go up in a malfunctioning airplane, is shamed into it by the crowd calling him a coward. The plane’s engine cut out and then exploded and Miller was “burned to a crisp” mid-air. But at least he wasn’t a coward.

In a speech in Peoria, President Taft admits that he never wanted to be president, he wanted to be chief justice of the Supreme Court. What an odd thing for someone hoping to be re-elected in a year to say out loud.

Demographic changes

The Boston Globe (paywall or registration thingy) says that the final straw for Abbas was a letter from the State Department which tried to persuade him not to seek UN recognition by saying that Palestinians had to consider Israel’s security needs and the “demographic changes” since 1967, i.e., the settlements. For some reason, this pissed off the Palestinians.

Today -100: September 22, 1911: Of reciprocity derailed, war engines, and women’s suffrage in California

Canada’s Liberal government loses the elections spectacularly (to the extent that any Canadian election can be described as spectacular), killing the chances of the tariff reciprocity treaty with the United States. I guess Canada didn’t want to be annexed after all. President Taft is surprised and disappointed, and the NYT is downright insulting: “Prejudice and delusion have triumphed in Canada”.

A war engine being tested in Italy exploded, killing 6 people. I really don’t know what a “war engine” might have been, not in 1911 anyway.

The NYT explains that the collision of the Olympic is “distinctly reassuring” about the safety of the big new liners.

The LAT explains its opposition to women’s suffrage: women don’t want it. “Woman has ‘rights,’ cares and burdens enough. Her supreme ‘right’ is the right NOT to vote. ... The Times honors and respects the women of Los Angeles more than those who are trying to lure them from the mellow radiance of the home into the fierce glare of publicity.”

You can read the ballot pamphlet arguments for and against Prop. 8.

Obama at the UN: Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations

Today, Barack Obama spoke to the United Nations General Assembly (you know, the part of the UN where we can’t veto Palestinian statehood).

JUST TWO? I THINK NOT. “I took office at a time of two wars for the United States. Moreover, the violent extremists who drew us into war in the first place -- Osama bin Laden, and his al Qaeda organization -- remained at large.” You’ll notice he had to specify who he meant by “the violent extremists who drew us into war,” lest people think he meant Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. You will also have noticed that Obama buys into the claim that Al Qaida was somehow responsible for “drawing us into war” in Iraq.


SEVERAL THOUSAND TROOPS STATIONED THERE, LARGE MILITARY BASES, ARMS SALES, YOU KNOW, A NORMAL RELATIONSHIP: “At the end of this year, America’s military operation in Iraq will be over. We will have a normal relationship with a sovereign nation that is a member of the community of nations.”

OBAMA NEVER WANTS US TO BE IN DOUBT: “So let there be no doubt: The tide of war is receding.”

NOT ANTHONY WEINER DEGRADED, BUT, YOU KNOW, DEGRADED: “even as al Qaeda is under more pressure than ever before. Its leadership has been degraded.”

IT’S NOT A SPEECH BY A US PRESIDENT TO THE UN ABOUT PEACE UNLESS HE’S DANCING AROUND SOME CORPSE OR OTHER: “And Osama bin Laden, a man who murdered thousands of people from dozens of countries, will never endanger the peace of the world again.” Thousands of people – personally?

ER, RIGHT, BURIED WITH HIM: “Osama bin Laden is gone, and the idea that change could only come through violence has been buried with him.”

ALSO, COMEDY: “But let us remember: Peace is hard. Peace is hard.”


After mentioning various Middle Eastern countries violently oppressing their peoples – Syria, Yemen, etc – he says “In Bahrain, steps have been taken toward reform and accountability. We’re pleased with that, but more is required.” He neglects to mention that that government too has slaughtered its opponents. And Saudi Arabia slips his mind altogether, for some reason.

DESERVE: “One year ago, I stood at this podium and I called for an independent Palestine. I believed then, and I believe now, that the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own.” There’s a lot of arrogance packed into that word “deserve.”

I FEEL ASSURED. DON’T YOU FEEL ASSURED? “Now, I know that many are frustrated by the lack of progress. I assure you, so am I.”

SO SUCK IT, UNITED NATIONS: “Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations”.


THERE’S THAT WORD AGAIN: “Israel deserves recognition. It deserves normal relations with its neighbors.”

HOW THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN DEADLOCK WILL BE BROKEN: “And the deadlock will only be broken when each side learns to stand in the other’s shoes, each side can see the world through the other’s eyes.” Yeah, because the problem is that they don’t understand each other enough, not that they understand each other perfectly. This is the internationalization of Obama’s belief that he can convert Republicans to reasonableness if he only explains things logically to them one more time.

In the odds & bits section of the speech, he talked a bit about nuclear weapons (i.e., Iran), climate change, and said, “we must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere,” although he fails to mention by name any country that might be infringing on those rights.

Today -100: September 21, 1911: Of spitzbubs, dead Chinese, and collisions

Anthony Comstock (of Comstock Act fame) arraigns a Mrs. Bertha Hussmann for mailing a postcard to her husband which called him a “spitzbub.” Comstock thought she was calling him a thief, which would violate laws against mailing anything of a “defamatory, libelous, and scurrilous character,” but in fact the word better translates from the German as scamp or rascal. Use it in a sentence today.

Last week -100, 2,000 Chinese rebels were slain. You’d think that would be worth more than two sentences in the NYT. You would be wrong.

The White Star liner Olympic, the largest vessel afloat, collides with the HMS Hawke, limps back to Southampton. The NYT blames the Hawke, but an investigation will blame the Olympic and its captain, Edward Smith, for failing to yield the right of way. Smith’s next command will be the Titanic (another link between the collisions of the Olympic and that of the Titanic: the repairs to the Olympic tied up facilities and delayed the launching of the Titanic). 60 millionaires were on board, including Waldorf Astor, who was, um, related in some way to John Jacob Astor IV, who went down on the Titanic.

A very dangerous insult

Rick Perry: “The Obama policy of moral equivalency which gives equal standing to the grievances of Israelis and Palestinians, including the orchestrators of terrorism, is a very dangerous insult.” No one can accuse Perry of giving equal or, you know, any, standing to the grievances of the Palestinians.


Perry opposes a freeze on Israeli settlements on occupied territories, because of course he does.

He added, “As a Christian, I have a clear directive to support Israel.” Directive?

We can’t just cut our way out of this hole

Obama spoke today about his number one priority since the Republicans told him it was his number one priority, deficit reduction.

IF THIS DOESN’T CONVINCE THE REPUBLICANS TO PASS THE JOBS ACT, I DON’T KNOW WHAT WILL: “They should pass it right away. I’m ready to sign a bill. I’ve got the pens all ready.” Say, if you’re serious about deficit reduction, maybe cut down on the number of pens you use just to sign your name.


AND I COULD “SAVE” A LOT OF MONEY IF I STOPPED BUYING ALL THAT COCAINE AND ALL THOSE MAGIC BEANS: “And we save an additional $1 trillion as we end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

HE WAS FOR LEAVING PEOPLE AT THE MERCY OF THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY BEFORE HE WAS AGAINST IT: “Because while we do need to reduce health care costs, I’m not going to allow that to be an excuse for turning Medicare into a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry.”

SOME OF HIS BUREAUCRATS CAN FIND AS MANY AS SEVEN DIMES OF WASTE AND INEFFICIENCY EVERY HOUR THEY SPEND SCOURING THE BUDGET: “So this is how we can reduce spending: by scouring the budget for every dime of waste and inefficiency”.

THE FIRST RULE WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF IN A HOLE... “We can’t just cut our way out of this hole. It’s going to take a balanced approach.”


IT SHOULD GIVE IT TO THOSE WHICH GIVE THE LARGEST CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS: “Our tax code shouldn’t give an advantage to companies with the best-connected lobbyists.”

NOTE THAT THE MIDDLE CLASS ARE “FAMILIES” BUT THE MILLIONAIRES AND BILLIONAIRES ARE ALONE. POOR LONELY MILLIONAIRES AND BILLIONAIRES. “And any reform should follow another simple principle: Middle-class families shouldn’t pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires.”

His strongest bit of rhetoric attacks the Republicans’ no-tax pledges as support for unfairness in that every billionaire evidently pays less than every secretary. Putting aside whether that’s a caricature of our, yes, ridiculously uneven tax code, this isn’t even a full-throated defense of progressive taxation. Hell, it could be a defense of the flat tax.

It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million. Anybody who says we can’t change the tax code to correct that, anyone who has signed some pledge to protect every single tax loophole so long as they live, they should be called out. They should have to defend that unfairness -- explain why somebody who's making $50 million a year in the financial markets should be paying 15 percent on their taxes, when a teacher making $50,000 a year is paying more than that -- paying a higher rate. They ought to have to answer for it. And if they’re pledged to keep that kind of unfairness in place, they should remember, the last time I checked the only pledge that really matters is the pledge we take to uphold the Constitution.

Which explains why he’s okay with having broken every single one of his campaign promises, I guess.

HOWEVER, TAKING OUT A FEW HEDGE FUND MANAGERS WITH PREDATOR DRONES WOULD JUST BE FUCKING COOL: “I reject the idea that asking a hedge fund manager to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare.”


WHAT, NOBODY? “Nobody wants to punish success in America.” Actually, let’s test that proposition.

poll by twiigs.com

WHAT BOTH PARTIES AGREE: “Both parties agree that we need to reduce the deficit by the same amount -- by $4 trillion.” Wow, they both agree on the same arbitrary number? It’s almost the same as only having one political party.

WE CAN’T AFFORD TO DO WHAT NOW? “Either we ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share in taxes, or we’re going to have to ask seniors to pay more for Medicare. We can’t afford to do both.” So if we raise Medicare fees we can’t also ask the rich to pay their fair share in taxes, is that what you’re saying? You know that makes no sense, right? “Either we gut education and medical research, or we’ve got to reform the tax code so that the most profitable corporations have to give up tax loopholes that other companies don’t get. We can’t afford to do both.” Seriously, did no one check this speech for logic?

SO OBAMA’S READING OF AMERICAN POLITICS IS THAT CLASS WARFARE ISN’T POPULAR, BUT MATH IS. “This is not class warfare. It’s math.”

WHO YOU CALLING ORDINARY? “I will not support any plan that puts all the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans.”

THE V WORD! HE USED THE V WORD! “And I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to pay their fair share.” So we can afford to do both those things after all?

Today -100: September 19, 1911: Of assassinations and dragons

After some nonsense about how Russian PM Stolypin might survive because the assassin’s bullet was deflected by his crucifix, he dies. The Jews of Kiev are expecting retaliatory violence, as is the custom.

Headline of the Day -100 (LAT): “Sea Dragon Sighted Off Coast Near San Diego.” 40 feet long, with four baby dragons. Pink.

Come to your senses

Bibi Netanyahu: “we are ready to enter negotiations if the Palestinians want to. At the end of the day I believe that after the smoke clears the Palestinians will come to their senses and sit down for negotiations that will bring peace for us and our neighbors.” Because nothing says “ready to enter negotiations” like telling your potential negotiating partners to “come to their senses.”

In the same article, Abbas denies trying to delegitimize Israel, saying that in fact Israel is a legitimate state, but its settlement-building activities are illegitimate. Actually, I’d say that until there is an established Palestinian state with mutually agreed borders, Israel is not a legitimate state.

I never liked Tony Blair,

but I didn’t realize how much I’d come to loathe him until I read an article in the Daily Telegraph about his secret meetings with Qaddafi as an emissary of Gordon Brown to negotiate the release of the Lockerbie bomber and when it said “He was flown to Libya twice at Gaddafi’s expense on one of the former dictator’s private jets,” I had a genuine brief moment of confusion over which one was the “former dictator.”

Quote of the Day

Counter-terrorism Czar John Brennan says the US can kill or capture people in any country on earth: “We reserve the right to take unilateral action if or when other governments are unwilling or unable to take the necessary actions themselves.” He does add the caveat that we are constrained by “respect for a state’s sovereignty,” so I guess we’ll respectfully insert military forces into other countries to kill people.