Letter of the day

With this being Veterans Day, which originally got it's start as a remembrance of the armistice that ended World War I, Letters of Note has up the telegram that some credit with getting the US to enter that war. I am of course referring to the Zimmerman Telegram, in which the German Foreign Secretary asked the German Ambassador to Mexico to ask the President of Mexico about his thoughts on the early work of Bob Dylan......and also if he wanted to invade America for the greater glory of Germany.


23638 18222 6719 14331 15021? Hilarious. Man, that German Foreign Secretary sure was a cut up. Oh sorry, can't you read decoded German communiques? You make me sick.

Nr. 130, 13042, Foreign Office has telegraphed on 16 January, No. 1. Strictly secret decode yourself. We intend to begin unrestricted U-boat warfare on February first. Effort will be made notwithstanding this to keep the United States neutral. In the event that we should not be successful in this, we propose alliance to Mexico upon the following basis: to make war together; make peace together; generous financial support; and agreement on our part that Mexico shall reconquer the formerly lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona. Arrangement of details to be left to your honor. You should disclose the foregoing to the President in strict secrecy as soon as outbreak of war with the United States is certain and add the proposal invite Japan to immediate spontaneous concurrent effort and at the same time use his good offices between us and Japan. Please call the President's attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our U-boats offers the prospect of forcing England in a few months to peace. Acknowledge receipt. Zimmermann.

Mexico wisely turned them down, preferring instead to slowly invade, assuming all our low paying service industry jobs, and reclaiming the land we stole from them in a bid they call Reconquista! For Aztlan!

Correspondence of the day

The chronicle of a young child named Billy (otherwise known as adult pop-culture historian Bill Geerhart), the sage wisdom of Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, and the cruel tyranny of porn stealing authoritative parents. Just one of the many amazing episodes of The Billy Letters, one small boy's disturbing correspondence with Charles Manson, the Night Stalker, the Unibomber, Larry, the Governator, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Adult correspondence

via Letters of Note comes a sarcastic 2003 letter from Al Franken to then Attorney General John Ashcroft asking for abstinence stories for a fake book he's writing. He wrote the letter while he was a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government. Now he's a Senator. Isn't life great? Maybe I need to reconsider my Bachmann based hatred of Minnesota and move to a Franken based like.

The greatest memo ever

South Park co-creator Matt Stone's letter to the MPAA detailing changes that have been made to South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut in order to get its rating reduced from an NC-17 to an R.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.18

CBO dismisses co-ops' relevance
Lost in the shuffle yesterday was a little revelation from the Congressional Budget Office. The co-op's, the supposed non-socialist answer to a public plan that would provide all of the benefits of price reduction, competition, and coverage without the fascism, are ineffective, don't reduce costs or increase coverage. I'm betting little things like that won't stand in the way of co-ops being in the bill. Why? Because we're governed by adults.

Okay, you lazy bitch
Hunter S. Thompson, from the grave. Letters of note brings us a 2001 letter HST dashed off to the soon to be defunct studio the Shooting Gallery, complaining that they were dragging their feet on an adaptation of the Rum Diary, which is something that only was able to start filming this year. It's classic Thompson, with liberal use of the underline function and phrases like "waterhead fuckaround", threats of dismemberment, as well as constant assaults on their professionalism and dilettante behavior.

Nobel winner Joseph Stiglitz predicts recession's end: not now, but 2012
Now, now, This counts as staggering optimism from Stiglitz. Sure he's pessimistic about everything that's going on now to deal with the financial apocalypse, but he's confident that in the future the recession will eventually end. Oh, not because of any actions taken or laws passed or bailouts handed out, just because he's a big Mayan calendar buff and he feels the world will end in 2012. That headline is a little misleading, it should read: "Stiglitz predicts recessions end, along with all life as we know it in 2012."

Baucus and the Threshold
It's pessimistic economists showing optimism day, as Paul Krugman looks at the Baucus bill and deems it to exceed his low, low, low, low, low expectations. Hell, he even has convinced himself that it will be improved when it gets to the full Senate. But he mainly centers the article around the question that while the Baucus bill has large flaws it is an improvement over what we have, so at what point do people have to accept that fact, accept that the bill won't have everything they like, and move forward and support it?

Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance
That's right, more people die from lack of insurance than drunk driving, homicide, and drunk homicide combined and have a 40% higher risk of death than peopl ewith coverage. That's a very controversial opinion Harvard researchers have put forth: that people without coverage are more likely to die from things that coverage can help prevent. It could be worse; they could be insured and just be deemed too sick to use it.