WTF of the day

Courtesy Salon comes this utterly weird reference by David Carr, NYT movie critic:

Steven Spielberg's "Munich" finds itself in a seemingly endless spanking machine.

Oh really? A quick search finds the RoboSpanker, a band or something (I don't care) called Spanking Machine, and this late 18th century description of such a device:

The following contrivance would, in a measure, obviate this inconvenience:---A machine might be made, which should put in motion certain elastic rods of cane or whalebone, the number and size of which might be determined by the law: the body of the delinquent might be subjected to the strokes of these rods, and the force and rapidity with which they should be applied, might be prescribed by the Judge: thus everything which is arbitrary might be removed. A public officer, of more responsible character than the common executioner, might preside over the infliction of the punishment; and when there were many delinquents to be punished, his time might be saved, and the terror of the scene heightened, without increasing the actual suffering, by increasing the number of the machines, and subjecting all the offenders to punishment at the same time.

Yes, everything more scientific back then when the guillotine was all the rage. But back to the film review... a film which "finds itself in a seemingly endless spanking machine."

I think Carr has been obsessing too much about Judith Miller.