Today -100: January 17, 1912: Much against its desires

The US chargé d’affaires in Nicaragua evidently asked that the country’s new constitution not be implemented until the new US ambassador arrives, so he can express his opinion on it.

Secretary of State Philander Knox sends a warning to the Cuban government threatening military intervention by the US, “much against its desires,” if they don’t settle the country down. A movement of veterans of the wars of independence against Spain has grown increasingly assertive in its demands (which are basically that the government should be run by veterans of the wars of independence), and members of the active military have been mixing with them despite orders not to. Cuban President Gomez says he thinks there isn’t reason for American intervention, thank you very much.

Scott reaches the South Pole.

Today -100: January 16, 1912: Of secrecy, bayonets, and thunders

The Senate debates in closed session whether to debate the arbitration treaties in secret, but decides to debate them in open session.

The militia charges Lawrence, Massachusetts mill strikers with bayonets, kills one.

NYT Index Typo of the Day: “SAYS ITALY PLANS TO FIGHT AUSTRALIA.” That’s Austria, for crumb’s sake.

Proquest Typo of the Day (LAT story): “GERMANY THUNDERS TRUCK BY SOCIALIST VICTORIES.”

Fact-check of the day

“But neither [Patton nor Churchill] was known to have urinated on human corpses.”

It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that one of the candidates would actually step in to defend pissing on corpses, but if one of them would, yeah, it was always gonna be Rick Perry.

Today -100: January 15, 1912: Mincing around

Raymond Poincaré forms a new French government. He will be both prime minister and foreign minister.

Headline of the Day -100: “More Mince Pie Protests.” The students at Simmons College are allowed it only once a year.

In direct opposition to everything the military stands for

The top US general in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen, said of that video of Marines peeing on dead Afghans that the images “are in direct opposition to everything the military stands for,” adding “first you pee on them, then you shoot them.”

Today -100: January 14, 1912: Of secret talks, obedience, and cranking

The leaking of the fact that there were secret negotiations between France and Germany, which toppled the Caillaux government in France this week, has pissed off Britain, which backed France up as it edged up to war with Germany without having been informed of the talks. Britain is now realizing that it could wind up embroiled in a, to coin a phrase, world war, because its ally is pursuing self-interested policies of which it is kept ignorant.

Germany is rumored to be negotiating to purchase Portugal’s colonies in Africa.

Two British suffragists, Victor Duval and Una Dugdale, got married. The Archbishop of Canterbury sent two priests to monitor the wedding and make sure the word “obey” was included in the marriage vows – although Una refused to repeat that bit after the vicar.

Headline of the Day -100: “Cranking is Dangerous.” 43% of automobile accidents involve the crank kicking back and injuring the autoist, breaking arms and ribs. So self-starters are becoming popular.

“Just like John Kerry”

A month ago, I made a little joke about Romney and Gingrich hiding the shameful secret that they can both speak French. Now Gingrich, who can speak French, puts out an ad making fun of Romney for speaking French. As the French would say, oy vey.

Live and learn, I guess

At the Haditha Massacre court martial of Frank Wuterich, Hector Salinas, asked what he would do differently, besides massacring a bunch of innocent civilians including children and a septuagenarian in a wheelchair, said he would have called in an air strike to level the house with the innocent civilians including children and the septuagenarian in a wheelchair.

Today -100: January 13, 1912: Of fifth columns, war at sea, and socialists

The assistant chief of staff of the Army tells the House Committee on Military Affairs that there are 35,000 former Japanese soldiers living in Hawaii, and that in the event of a war between the US and Japan, they would support Japan.

The war between Italy and Turkey over Libya is still going on, with an exciting new element: a naval battle in the Red Sea (a week ago, actually). As it turns out, the Ottomans suck at fighting wars at sea as bad as they suck at fighting wars on land.

German elections: the Socialists win big in the first round, but mostly at the expense of the center-left parties, so the Conservatives will remain in charge (and much power, including picking the chancellor and his cabinet, is entirely in the hands of the kaiser rather than the Reichstag anyway).

Today -100: January 12, 1912: Of the death penalty, inconsistency, and thrifty negroes

New York Gov. John Dix has come out against the death penalty. There will be a vote in the Legislature shortly.

New Jersey Gov. Woodrow Wilson gives a speech to the National League of Commission Merchants in which he defended inconsistency: “A man who cannot change his mind gives evidence of the most pathetic ignorance.” In other words, yes I wrote about knocking William Jennings Bryan into a cocked hat before and I’m sucking up to him now, deal with it. He also livened up his speech with that staple of political speeches, a darky story (which I didn’t understand, something about an old negro on a train sleeping with his mouth open and someone puts quinine on his tongue and he wakes up and says “Conductor, I’ve done busted my gall.” Maybe you had to be there.)

Condescending Headline of the Day -100 (LAT): “Negroes Becoming Thrifty.” About the spread of negro banks.

Ask a silly question...

From the Haditha Massacre court-martial:

Q: “Why did you shoot the men?”

Corporal (at the time of the Haditha Massacre; of course he’s been promoted to sergeant since his participation in the Haditha Massacre, because of course he has) Sanick Dela Cruz: “Because I wanted to make sure they were dead, sir.”

Quiet rooms?

On NBC today:

Q: Are there no fair questions about the distribution of wealth without it being seen as envy, though?

ROMNEY: I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like.

Bathrooms. He means bathrooms, doesn’t he?

This may be a stupid question

but does Mitt Romney actually have health insurance? Did his assumption that you can just “fire” your insurance company when it fails to perform to your satisfaction derive from never having had to deal with one?

On average, health insurance is a bad deal for consumers, obviously, or insurance companies wouldn’t be making profits. We get it because our health care may suddenly become more expensive than that average and more expensive than we can afford. So if a Bill Gates or other mega-millionaire who can easily afford any health care they need for some reason didn’t have their insurance paid for their corporation, simple economic calculation might dictate that they scoff at the idea of forking over premiums to Blue Cross the way the rest of us airily dismiss the Best Buy employee’s query as to whether we’d care to get the extended warranty for that Blu-ray player, because what sort of rubes do they think we are?

I don’t know exactly how much money constitutes “fuck you, Blue Cross” money, but Mittens probably has it. So does he actually health insurance?

The rich are different from you and me. They do not think as we do; they don’t have to.

Today -100: January 11, 1912: Of scandals and fires

Not surprisingly, after the foreign minister resigned rather than lie that French Prime Minister Joseph Caillaux was telling the truth, the government has collapsed.

Didn’t mention it yesterday, but the Equitable Building in NYC burned down. Built in 1870, at 7½ stories it was the first skyscraper. Lots of pictures of the fire here on a blog devoted to pictures of this very building, because there’s a blog for everything, as well there should be.

Caption contest

From Gingrich’s tour of the Sturm, Ruger & Co. factory in New Hampshire last week. Caption the shit out of this puppy.


Bonus pic:

Actually, what he really meant to say was that he likes to set hobos on fire

There are jokes that some people shouldn’t tell, because of who they are. This is why Twitt Romney’s “I like to fire people” line is a problem, despite being basically taken out of context.

For example, George Bush once made a “there’s arsenic in your water glass” joke, ripped off from the movie Erin Brockavitch, evidently not realizing that that gag works when told by someone trying to take dangerous chemicals out of drinking water, like Julia Roberts in the movie, but not from someone who reduced standards on arsenic in drinking water.

In the same way, “I like to fire people” does not sound good when told by someone who has fired thousands of people to audiences that include people who have been on the wrong side of the desk when being fired by someone who looked very much like Mitt Romney and who they strongly suspected was not wearing any pants under that desk, because he really, really liked to fire people, if you know what I mean.

Another problematic Romney line, from one of the weekend debates, “I was happy that [Ted Kennedy] had to take a mortgage out on his house to ultimately defeat me.” It wasn’t just that he was bragging about using his candidacy as an economic weapon, combined with the story about the advice from his father that only rich people should run for office (which seems odder the more I think about it: why would George Romney say that to Mitt, who inherited so much money that he would always be rich, absent a George Bushian level of business incompetence?), it was the assumption that it is always money that wins elections (had to take out a mortgage to ultimately defeat me). How insulting is that to the voters of Massachusetts?

Discriminatory and unnecessary

The 10th Circuit upholds a lower court ruling suspending Oklahoma’s 2010 referendum which banned sharia law as discriminatory and unnecessary, adding, “You know, like Oklahoma itself.”

Today -100: January 10, 1912: Of “reluctant” candidates, resignations, and leather minorities

Theodore Roosevelt says that he will run for president – if the nomination is forced upon him. (Well, maybe: people at the event differ on exactly what he said.)

Since the French-German treaty over Morocco was signed there have been rumors in France that during the main negotiations and threats of war and whatnot, there were parallel secret negotiations between French and German financiers over business interests (railroad concessions in central Africa and Morocco). Prime Minister Joseph Caillaux gave his word of honor that there weren’t, but Foreign Minister Justin de Selves would not back him up when asked by Clemenceau in the Senate to do so, saying that he was caught between a duty to stick to the truth and a duty to the interests of the country. He has resigned.

For the first time, the rank of foreign diplomats in Germany will include a Jew, Sir Francis Oppenheimer, the new commercial attaché at the British Embassy in Berlin. The German court usually... discourages... countries from sending non-Christian diplomats.

Headline of the Day -100: “Leather Minority Restless.” I’ll bet they are, I’ll bet they are.

Underwear News of the Day

Zimbabwe outlaws the sale of used underwear, because ew.

The Zim finance minister says: “If you are a husband and you see your wife buying underwear from the flea market, you would have failed.” The key is in the word “flea.”

The Daily Telegraph has a 15-picture photo gallery, because of course they do, from No Pants Day (No Trousers Day in London, because they talk funny there), wherein people ride subways in their undies.

A town councillor in Vila Velha, Brazil proposes a law that brides be required to wear underwear under their wedding dresses. “The superstitious brides believe it will make their marriages last longer, he explained.”

Today -100: January 9, 1912: Of electric chairs, cocked hats, native reverence & complete submission, and Blease

NY County Sheriff Harburger has seen that execution and is now convinced that the electric chair is completely humane. So that settles that. One detail: they took the guy’s temperature after the execution, and it was 128 .

A letter Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1907 (before he entered politics) has come to light, and is being pushed by the Hearst papers, expressing the wish that Democrats could “do something, at once dignified and effective, to knock Mr. Bryan once and for all into a cocked hat.”

An article in the NYT on King George’s visit to India, objectively written by a British colonial administrator and headlined “India Reconciled By King’s Visit,” says that this alleged reconciliation with imperial rule is “the natural expression of native reverence and complete submission.”

South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease issues his second State of the State address. He wants negro lodges (that is, the equivalent of Shriners, Rotary, that sort of thing) banned because they help members charged with crimes pay for lawyers. He wants white teachers barred from teaching black students. “We boast of the fact that we have no social equality in South Carolina, yet white people are teaching in negro schools, who are associating with the pupils and teaching them that they are as good as white people and are instilling into their heads ideas of social equality. Not long since a white woman (and a good looking one) was seen walking on a negro school ground with one arm around a negro boy and the other around a negro girl. What do you expect to be the outcome of this kind of conduct? Stop it, and stop it now.” He wants the state to buy an electric chair. He boasts that the state’s murder rate is down and that there was only one lynching last year, but he warns that lynchings are inevitable: “When a negro puts his hands on a white woman, he knows what is coming”.