Today -100: July 31, 1910: Of women governors and race wars

The New Hampshire attorney general advises the secretary of state that Marilla Ricker, a, you know, woman, can’t run for governor.

Spain has recalled its ambassador to the Vatican over the latter’s insistence that Spain not allow non-Catholic churches to display the insignia for public worship. The Catholic Church seems to be trying to foment a Carlist coup against the liberal government.

Two black men who killed a white child are lynched in Boniface, Florida.

A “race war” in Slocum, Texas seems rather one-sided: the 18 dead bodies recovered so far are all black. A white farmer had guaranteed the note of a black man, who then skipped out of town. When he eventually returned, a less than amicable discussion ensued, the black people of the town armed themselves, the whites called for reinforcements from far and wide, and the fun was on. The 18 corpses were scattered in the woods, which suggests less a race war than a hunting party.

Hypocritical Alliterative Asshole of the Day: Mike Mullen

The chair of the Joint Chiefs, the alliterative Mike Mullen, says of WikiLeaks: “Mr Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.”

Whereas the alliterative Mike Mullen can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he is doing, but the truth is he definitely, absolutely already has on his hands the blood of many, many, many young soldiers and Afghan families.

Another edition of Who Needs a Real Newspaper When We Have the Daily Telegraph, pervy edition

Today’s headlines: “Naked Woman Falls Through Roof.” She and a... friend... were “rolling about” on the top of a four-story building in Aberdeen. Before the woman fell, they were reported by “two shocked joiners,” who you’d think would have just... joined. “A Grampian Police spokesman confirmed the woman ‘appeared to be okay’.” Not sure if that’s a medical or an aesthetic assessment. Sadly, there is no picture.

There is also no picture for the story of the Advertising Standards Agency banning an ad for Tricketts, a double-glazing company in Merthyr Tydfil, with a picture of women’s breasts covered by a pair of door knockers and the text “We sell big knockers.....Window Hinges, Door Handles, Window Handles ...” Well, there is a picture, but it’s just a picture of some random door knockers.


The Advertising Standards Agency noted that “the text ‘WE SELL BIG KNOCKERS’ was clearly a crude comparison between the woman’s breasts and the door knockers Tricketts sold, and that the image had clearly been chosen for that reason. We also noted the image bore no relevance to the products sold by Tricketts, a door and window installation company. We considered that the image and text were likely to be seen to objectify and degrade women by linking their physical attributes to the advertiser’s door and window products” and that the ad might be deemed offensive by women and/or door and window products.

There’s also no picture, no interesting picture anyway, for a story about Westminster Council taking a man to court for holding on his property – the former offices of the High Commission of Sierra Leone and Gambia – a “porn disco.” According to the judge, “The officers who attended the event confirmed the accuracy of the description.”

So what story does have a picture? One about ultra-Orthodox Jewish women in Israel who have taken to wearing burkas.


Some of their husbands have taken them to rabbinical courts to try to stop them, although in one case the court ordered the couple to divorce. The Eida Charedis, an ultra-Orthodox rabbinical authority, will soon issue an edict “declaring burka wearing a sexual fetish that is as promiscuous as wearing too little.”

As it ever was

I’m currently reading Christopher Andrew’s history of MI5, which recounts (pp. 694-5) an IRA attempt to blow up Queen Elizabeth and the King of Norway, who were inaugurating an oil terminal in May 1981 because that’s what royal types do with their lives. A bomb blew up 500 yards away but did no serious damage (a second bomb had been sent to the bombers from Ireland for use that day, but was delayed in the mail). So it was basically pure dumb luck that prevented a disaster. The company owning the oil terminal had “balked at the cost” of implementing suggested security measures, and you know where I’m going with this, don’t you? It was BP, of course.

Today -100: July 30, 1910: Of faithful Protestants and rheumatic justices

The British Parliament re-writes the coronation oath for the new king. He doesn’t have to say that he’s the enemy of all things popish, just that he’s “a faithful Protestant.” Anti-Catholics take to the streets to oppose the change.

Supreme Court Justice William Moody finally announces his retirement.

And a two-drink minimum

When the pope visits Britain in September, tickets will be sold to papal events for the first time. The church is blaming health and safety regs for the extra costs. 70,000 tickets are available at up to £25 each for the beatification of John Henry Newman – that’s a lot of beatifying! – and 130,000 for a prayer vigil at Hyde Park (where the religious nutters usually just pass around a hat).

As ever, if a priest offers you a ticket for a free “ride,” run away very quickly.

Pay up

Remember Emily Henochowicz, the American art student whose eye the Israeli army shot out in May during a protest of the Flotillacide? They’re refusing to pay her medical bills because she put herself at risk by participating in a breach of the peace and anyway, the tear cannister that hit her in the head, also breaking her jaw, wasn’t fired directly at her (the IDF claims), but ricocheted. So that’s okay then.

(Read the comments on that Ha’aretz article if you want to feel crappy about human nature all day.)

Today -100: July 28, 1910: Of Harding

The Ohio Republican convention nominates former Lt. Gov. Warren Harding to be governor (Spoiler Alert: he will lose).

Asshole of the Day

Israeli police arrested, and then released, the head of a yeshiva in an illegal West Bank settlement, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, for writing a book on when it’s okay with God if you kill children, for example if they’re the child of someone you want to put pressure on, or if they’re standing in the way – “children are often doing this” – or if they are the children of enemies in time of war and “it is clear that they will grow up to harm us” and “it is assumed that they will grow up to be evil like their parents.” “Anywhere where the presence of a gentile poses a threat to Israel, it is permissible to kill him, even if it is a righteous gentile who is not responsible for the threatening situation.”

Shapira was arrested in January for an arson attack on a mosque in the West Bank, but was released.

A Knesset member says the arrest is just like “the days of Czarist Russia” and a spokesman for Shapira said: “Once more we are seeing rabbis being gagged and serious damage inflicted to their honor...”

Today -100: July 27, 1910: Of Bryan and the liquor Democrats

Like Teddy Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan continues to exercise a fascination over the public imagination, but his influence just gets smaller and smaller. Now, he has failed to get the Democrats of his own state of Nebraska to support him on the county option for prohibition. He claims there is an organized attempt by the liquor interests to obtain control of the state, and attacks the “liquor Democrats.” The new plank opposes making any plan to regulate the liquor trade a party question, saying any such plans should be decided by a popular vote, “and that the cause of good government and public morals will be better served in that way than by dividing the people into hostile factions on purely moral issues.”

Geologists calculate the age of the earth as somewhere between 55 million and 70 million years old. So wrong.

Metaphor alert metaphor alert metaphor alert metaphor alert metaphor alert

Pentagon spokesmodel Dave Lapan won’t comment on the WikiLeaks docs: “Just because they are posted on the Internet, doesn’t make them unclassified.” It’s that Pentagonal ability to deny reality that has brought us where we are today in Afghanistan.

Yup, that face is still as punchable as ever

George Bush attended a baseball game yesterday

Who needs a real newspaper when we have the Daily Telegraph?

That said, anyone with a tunnel dug under the Times paywall should feel free to email or post in comments anything interesting in the Times.

Today we’ve got 18 dead in a stampede during the annual “Love Parade” in Duisburg, Germany. Even if you stick the word “love” in there, you just really don’t want Germans marching in a line; no good ever comes of it.

The Headline of the Day is not “Ed Balls Considers Quitting Labour Leadership Race after Union Snub,” it’s the one every newspaper editor in Britain in hoping and praying for: “Balls Out.”

Name of the Day: British Justice Minister Crispin Blunt, whose name is a mixed message if ever there was one.

A Methodist minister in... actually the article doesn’t say where, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter... will tweet holy communion. People are supposed to read the tweets out loud, tweet back “amen” or possibly #amen at the appropriate intervals, and eat their own bread – but not rye bread, that’s too Jew-y, and definitely not Cheetos unless you’re a Unitarian.

“Hollywood Fears the 3D Bubble Has Already Burst.” Which looked totally awesome in 3D, according to an excited 11-year-old boy.

Today -100: July 24, 1910: Of blockade-running, the magnetical pole for all the snobs and imbeciles of the world, and Taft’s ankle

The US is ignoring the Nicaraguan government’s order closing Bluefields as a port, and has announced that it will protect – against the Madriz government – “legitimate” US trade.

The Futurists announce their desire to destroy Venice, “magnetical pole for all the snobs and imbeciles of the world,” fill in its canals, and create a commercial and military Venice, with nice factories and stuff. Pamphlets to this effect were thrown from St. Mark’s. This has been called the beginning of performance art.

Front Page Headline of the Day -100: “Taft Bravely Limps on Strained Ankle.” A golf injury: so presidential.

Today -100: July 23, 1910: Of Korean colonization, Mormon missionaries, lynchers let loose, and other stuff I’m too lazy to find alliterations for

Korea is about to become fully a colony of Japan, with the Japanese-appointed Resident-General no longer reporting to the Korean emperor but to the Japanese prime minister. Japanese Prime Minister Katsura Taro says: “Our Government realizes the necessity of adopting the fundamental principles of the Japanese administration in Korea. Some people seem to fear that the annexation of Korea may give rise to insurrections, but the Government does not mind an insurrection.”

Prussia expels 21 Mormon missionaries.

In Cairo, Illinois, 12 people are acquitted of the attempted lynching (not an actual lynching, as the NYT says), in February.

A black man is lynched in Belton, Texas. He had tried to enter the room of a white woman, then killed the constable attempting to arrest him. A mob burned him at the stake.

A woman escaped from jail in New York, but seems to have committed no actual crime in doing so. The laws against escape refer to those convicted of felonies or misdemeanors, but she had been convicted of disorderly conduct, which is neither.

Headline of the Day -100: “Taft Speaks Out for Long Vacations.” In a speech at Bar Harbor during his, yes, vacation, he said that since his father’s time, we’ve learned that two or three months’ vacation are necessary to recover from the “hard and nervous strain” of working during autumn and spring.

Spoke too soon. Headline of the Day -100: “Girl Weds Pianist; Father Very Angry.”

Fair question

Zachary Tomanelli of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) asks “How Many Breitbart Frauds Will Media Fall For?”

All of them.

This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.

More news from the Daily Telegraph; screw the Times of London paywall

“Call for 80 Per Cent of Men in Africa to Be Circumcised to Prevent Spread of Aids.” Or all men to be 80% circumcised. Whatever.

A German teacher with a paralyzing fear of rabbits has lost in her attempt to get an injunction against a 14-year-old girl who kept making drawings of bunnies.

Headline of the Day: “Catholic Church: Confessional Cannot Be Used as a Sauna.” A decommissioned church in Vienna put the confessional up on eBay, describing it as perfect for a one-person sauna, a children’s playhouse (must... resist... yet another... child abuse joke...) or a small bar. The bidding was up to, um, 666.66 euros before the archdiocese stepped in.

Cardiff borough councillor John Dixon (LibDem) may be suspended for failing to “show respect and consideration for others” for having tweeted “I didn’t know the Scientologists had a church on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off.” He has since posted “am I going to get into more trouble for saying that, right now, I’m bigger than Xenu, do you think?”

A whale crash lands on a yacht off South Africa.


The Telegraph also has a photo gallery from the 6th Annual Chap Olympiad, for chaps, bounders and cads. Cucumber sandwich discus, and the like.

Sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals

In Israel, an Arab man is sentenced to 18 months in prison for “rape by deception,” that is, the sex was consensual, but he had told her he was Jewish. One of the judges said “the court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price – the sanctity of their bodies and souls.”

Today -100: July 21, 1910: Of general colons and criminal libel

One of the Nicaraguan rebel leaders, Gen. Carmen Corea, whose nom de guerre was Gen. Colon, has died in battle. I’m guessing “Gen. Colon” sounds better in Spanish.

Gov. Beryl F. Carroll of Iowa is indicted for criminal libel for things he said about the chairman of the State Board of Control whilst demanding his resignation. “The Governor was permitted to remain at liberty without bond.”

Let us not confuse the oil spill with the Libyan bomber

Obama met today with large-faced British Prime Minister David Cameron.

ESCELLENT, I MEAN ELKSELLENT: O: “We have just concluded some excellent discussions -- including whether the beers from our hometowns that we exchanged are best served warm or cold.” Cameron later admitted that he got so pissed drinking the beer Obama gave him – cold – while watching the World Cup that he actually cheered for Germany. And ordered an Argentine ship bombed.


IS THAT SPECIAL OR “SPECIAL”? “Mr. Prime Minister, we can never say it enough. The United States and the United Kingdom enjoy a truly special relationship.”

Cameron was most impressed: “I was most impressed by how tidy your children’s bedrooms were.” Seriously though, Barack, keep your kids’ bedrooms out of the White House tour.

Cameron called the international conference in Afghanistan a “real achievement” for the Karzai regime, neglecting to mention the rocket attack on the Kabul airport just as the plane carrying the UN secretary-general was on approach.

Cameron offered an important clarification: “And let us not confuse the oil spill with the Libyan bomber.”