Wednesday, May 13, 2026

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 138th Edition: Congress is having hearings on UFOs.

It's interesting that the overwhelming majority of the world's UFO siting's are from the US. 

Same for cyptids.  

It's almost like we; 1) got money, 2) got bored, 3) got stupid, and 4) elected Trump.  He'll probably result in all of those things getting beat out of us.

Everyone has always wondered what would happen if a society got super flush. Well, apparently we entertain wacky conspiracy theories, become fascinated with our reproductive organs, and listen to batshit crazy hucksters.

Now we know.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 136th Edition.Wyoming Republicans, not realizing they're Democrats, are criticizing Democrats, who are moderate Republicans, crossing over.

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CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 136th Edition.Wyoming Republicans, not realizing they're Democrats, are criticizing Democrats, who are moderate Republicans, crossing over.

I saw an old friend getting hot and bothered by this today.  The small Democratic Party is having an  internal debate about its members switching their registration over to Republican so that the Wyoming Freedom Caucus candidates stand a bitter chance of losing.   Truth be known, almost all moderate Democrats in the state did that decades ago, some later running as fairly successful Republicans.  Cowboy State Daily Carpetbagger Dave Simpson has written an op ed about checking the "label" of Republican candidates.

Indeed, check it.  Most of the WFC candidates don't belong in the GOP at all. They aren't Republicans.

My old friend is supporting Brent Bien, who spent 28 years sucking on the government tit before taking a retirement (more sucking on the government tit) and is upset with Degenfelder and Barlow.  I'm not keen on Barlow either, but if you spend almost 30 years working in an institution that's funded by the taxpayers and then come out with a no taxes policy, you are some kind of hypocrite.  

And yes I'm speaking of a military career. Yes, there's a lot that's honorable about a military career, but I'm pretty familiar with it and you never have to 1) send out a bill, 2) worry about the competition, 3) worry your employer isn't going to have money to pay you, 3) work for fifty years before you retire, if you can ever retire, 4) worry that you line of work is just going to cease to exist.  Sure, you do have to worry about violent death, that's very true.  Like the Potts character says in Major Dundee; "that goes with the pretty girls and the pension", but the chances of that, while very real, are much less than they're made out to be for most career military people, although they are real, and the risk of violent death goes with a host of other professions too for which such worries do exist and you aren't going to get a "thank you for your service!" accolade and aren't going to be regarded as a hero.

Being a logger is actually the most dangerous job in the U.S., followed by being a commercial fisherman.  In a location specific sense, being a taxi driver was, and may still be, the most dangerous job in the U.S.

Anyhow, the criticism is that Barlow and Degenfelder might not adhere to, well:

Meine Ehre heißt Treue

Oh my, think for yourself, can't have that.

Anyhow, my friend is no doubt part of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus which is demanding loyalty oaths from Republicans.

But they aren't Republicans.

They're Dixiecrats through and through.


You'd be really hard pressed to find a Dixiecrat issue that the WFC didn't adhere to, somehow.

And you'd be hard pressed to find a Republican here who was part of the party in the Nixon or Reagan era who wouldn't look at the current party with utter disdain.

Ironically, being in the state GOP at the present time must be real torture for people who hold a no foreign wars, American First, white people only, sort of view, when their "Republican" President holds a war of the week, himself first, let's annex Venezuela and make it a state, sort of view.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 135th Edition. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus

So it's clear from the onset, I don't care one bit about the World Cup. . .

I couldn't care less that its being hosted in the United States, and in the Trump era, I expect the whole thing to be one big, dumb spectacle.  

Go way World Cup.

Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump. Ignoramus Watch Part 4. Dr. Hegseth countermands George Washington edition.

 


April 22, 2026

During the Revolutionary War, George Washington ordered his troops inoculated against Small Pox.

This week Pete Hegseth lifted the requirement that troops be inoculated for influenza for "religious" reasons.

The current GOP is heavily anti scientific.

Opposition to vaccinations has been in American history largely a thing of smaller Christian and non Christian sects which are fairly anti scientific, as opposed to the majority of Christians who have no objection to vaccination.  However, when the far right of the country started to turn weird, listening to such medical lights as boob model Jenny McCarthy, that began to change a bit. Covid really made it worse as a significant portion of the country turned anti vax under the leadership of Donald Trump, who got the vaccine, but who recommended some really lethal approaches to the crisis as well.

Troops who don't get inoculated ought to just be given dishonorable or less than honorable discharges.  That's what should have occurred to those who refused the Covid vaccine.

April 24, 2026

The war department stands ready for what comes next. Locked and loaded. May God continue to breast—bless our warriors each and every day and on each and every mission.

Hegseth. 

Breast?

Okay, I get that it's a slip of the tongue, um, well, but it's an odd one.

May 12, 2026

The Aryan Nation, the Nazis, and the KKK are not far-right organizations.  Those are far-left organizations, and they always have been. The KKK was created and started by the Democrats in the United States to prevent blacks from being able to participate in the political arena, if you will. So, I'm going to say they've never been associated with the right, they've always been associated with the left.

Harriet Hageman.

Hageman's no dummy and she knows this is crap, or has drank so much of the Kool Aide she'll spout stuff that's absurd.

Every one of these organizations is from the far right and any claim to the contrary is patently absurd.  The claim about the Nazis, which I've seen before, comes from the party's very early, and frankly pre Hitler, days  and its name, the National Socialist Party.  The absurdity of that claim fails to realize that "socialism" in the context of nationalist parties doesn't necessarily mean Marxism, but "for society".  In the case of the Nazis, way early on their did espouse Socialism but by the time they'd come to power they'd abandoned it in favor of autarky and the early socialist in the party were sidelined or expelled.

And the claim about the KKK being founded by the Democrats and therefore left wing completely ignores that originally the Republican Party was the left wing party, and the Democrats were a right wing party.  The Democrats didn't evolve into the political left until the 20th Century and in the American South remained the conservative party into the 1980s.  Hageman herself is old enough to have voted in Reagan's first run for the Oval Office and therefore should be well aware of that.

This is totally reprehensible.

Cont:

Reporter: What extent are Americans’ financial situation motivating you to make a deal?

Trump: Not even a little bit. I don't think about Americans’ financial situation.

May 13, 2026


So it turns out that Trump's advisors uniformly told him not to launch the war against Iran, but he did anyway, and the advisors, not wanting to be blamed for his stupidity, leaked.  He wants them prosecuted for treason, and sycophant Todd Blanche is looking to to it.

The real crime here is Trump's, who launched an illegal war.  With no declaration of war, every single Iranian killed in it has been the victim of some sort of crime, and every American who has died has been the victim of some sort of crime ultimately attributable to Trump as well.

Blanche is pathetic.  When this is over, and it will be, his careers should be flushed down the toilet.

And then there's this:

PabloReports: Ted Cruz called you a parasite and disparaged your work as a bartender.

AOC: I think it’s funny that he’s been taking a government paycheck for 23 years but has the audacity to criticize someone who has come from a family that had to work their way up and earn their place here.

This is really becoming a Republican specialty around here.  We get retired servicemen who come in after sucking on the government tit for 30 years, retire, and then start sucking on the other government tit, and then run for office on the "I hate the government" ticket.

In that sense, the Democrat running against Collins in Maine is really refreshing.  He's given a speech about his combat service and then noted how he can't figure out how that's relevant to being a Senator.  It isn't.  

Recently I saw somebody post something in favor of Brent Bien here in Wyoming, noting that he's served in combat or dangerous conditions all over the world, and how that will make him ready to lead.  Yeah, lead troops, not a state government. 

We have a whole host of candidates from the He Man Government Haters Club running locally.  They have a right to run, but while they're doing it, they shouldn't be draining their mommy.  It's hypcritical.

Last edition:

Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump. Ignoramus Watch Part 3. The Quack Edition.

Occupations in Family History: Job Adverts in British Newspapers of 1926

Interesting set of advertisements.

Do the math on the Head Cow Man.

Occupations in Family History: Job Adverts in British Newspapers of 1926

Saturday, May 13, 1911. Massacre of Torreón

 


Maderistas took the railroad hub of Torreón in Coahuila.  After they entered the city, they killed 300 Chinese residents.  The event is the largest one of its type committed by Mexican revolutionaries during the war, but it was not the only one.

Zapata's forces attacked Cuautla.

Last edition:

Friday, May 12, 1911. On to Mexico City.

The 25th Amendment Watch List, Sixteenth Edition: The Addled.


May 12, 2026

Drugs coming by sea, by ocean, by water. A lot of people say, What do you mean by sea? Is it see? Like vision? No, it’s sea. SEA.

Donald Trump on the maritime transportation of illegal drugs.  Absolutely nobody was confused on this topic, maybe other than Trump.

We have a man who is doing a great job. I knew it! Because he kept me out of jail for years. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. He kept me out of jail.

Ummm. . . 

We're building a beautiful ballroom. I'm very good at ballrooms.

The ballroom, which will either never be built or will be ripped down, is a Trump obsession.

A new name I came up  -- dumbocrat. I think that could be a good one. I've come up with some extraordinary names. But I was talking about Hakeem Jeffries. He's a low IQ person. He's a dumb guy.

Trump has an obsession on intelligence like only a man who isn't intelligent can have.

Without you, we have Somalia. A fine place where we have a congresswoman who brilliantly came over to the country by marrying her brother. That was the first law she broke. She comes from a country where they have nothing but crime, bedlam, filth. Elan Omar.

Ilhan Omar  has been married three times, and none of her husbands were her brother.

This accusation taps into the deeply racist nature of a lot of MAGA in particular and the American far right in general. This has laid under the surface following the 1960s for years, but it resurfaced with the rise of Barack Obama which caused this demographic to flip out.  Trump tapped into it early with his clams that Obama, who was born in Hawaii, was born in Kenya.

Funny thing here is that Obama and Trump share a common item here in that both of them were born to a couple in which one of them was an immigrant.  In Trump's case, however, the immigrant was a white Christian, as opposed to Obama's. This item here really shows something that's deeply ingrained in the MAGA movement.  It really doesn't like anyone who isn't white and it really doesn't like anyone who isn't culturally Christian.

Otherwise, it's perfectly okay with people like Trump, who marry foreign women of a certain appearance and then divorce them later on, and whose Christianity is a variant of it that doesn't really require any actual effort or adherence to the Gospel.

The people that did it -- these people did not work for me. They said they work for me. They come from a different part of the country. But they were good. The people that worked for me recommended it and they recommend we do it this way. But I recommended it to them because I'm very good at construction.

Tide D Bowl.

No Republican has ever spoken to me about Cuba, which is a failed country and only heading in one direction - down! Cuba is asking for help, and we are going to talk!!! In the meantime, I’m off to China! President DJT

Donald Trump.

We'll address the super creepy "Trump babies" in another thread.

A note here.  Trump's 18 month mark will be July 20, 2026.  If I'm right, we're now in the final phases of his administration as he'll be removed by the 25th Amendment by then.

May 13, 2026

Trump, who came to office principally because he promised to deport the 10M to 12M illegal aliens in the US, most of whom are Hispanic, now wants to annex Venezuela, with a population of 31M, and make it a state.


Let's not pretend he's joking, he isn't.

The population of the US is currently 20% Hispanic.  Annexation of Venezuela and making its citizens US citizens would convert the country to being a 30% Hispanic country overnight.  MAGA has a strongly nativist anti Hispanic bias.  It'll amusing how they bend that to supporting this, but they will.

The entire thing is amusing about King Donny.  He's so dim that all he ever thinks about is the cash value of something, and Venezuela has oil.  He apparently doesn't realize that Venezuela, which is a large country which would probably come in as more than one state if it did, is also a Socialist one.  The Republican Party would be effectively dead, and the US would be far more left wing than it currently is.

This won't happen, as it would require the cooperation of Congress.  At least I don't think it would.  But the fact that MAGA will support this just shows how dim that movement is.

MAGA politicians, including Harriet Hageman and John Sycophant Barrasso, should be quizzed on this, and don't let them weasel out of answering or tell you its a joke.  It isn't.

On issues closer to home:

Wyoming Cattle Ranchers Worried Over Trump Proposal To Lower Tariffs On Beef Imports

Farmers and ranches who supported Trump were reading something into him that just isn't there and will regret it.

Last edition:

Ballroom Batshit. A demented president goes full bonkers. The 25th Amendment Watch List Fifteenth Edition and Court Watch Part VI.

The 2027 Legislature, super early edition. The make them stop edition.

Ugh, just when the first corn fed, cornfederate legislature was safely in the history books, the Management Council met.  Of course, the same dumb ideas that get rejected repeatedly are back up for reconsideration, at least in part.

I hear we want to do the election review again and redo the same bills that just died three weeks ago ... in exchange for 911 funding.

Tara Nethercott.

The corner crossing bill won't be back, which is too bad.

Vote the WFC out and send them back to pre 1964 Alabama where they'll be happy.

May 13, 2026

Woman Sued By House Candidate Reid Rasner Urges Ban On Frivolous Lawsuits

I was aware this legislation had been introduced.  Frankly, Anti SLAPP provisions are really tricky as they're based, basically, on pre judging a litigants intent.

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 4. Economics in the Dementia Ward.


May 1, 2026

We're constantly told that tariffs are good for everyone.  But then monarchs come and they're lifted.

He's lost his mind.

Cont:

May 3, 2026

Discount airline Spirit dissolves.

 It was a victim of high aviation fuel, something brought about by Donald Trump's illegal attack on Iran.


May 4, 2026


This has been in the news for awhile, but I haven't posted it yet.

Frankly, the impact of pipelines is mostly in their construction, to it's temporary.  At least for the state.  These pipelines tend to transport Canadian oil, so the impact is less than it might seem.

And the state has got to get over its addiction to petroleum.

Regarding petroleum, the U.S. is now exporting a record amount due to the war with Iran, which doesn't help U.S. citizens whatsoever, as it cause the price of the product to rise, and accelerates U.S. depletion of the resource.  Export of it, save for conditions in which the petroleum cannot be refined here, should be banned.

For that matter, as a resource that nobody contributed to putting in the ground, some thought should be given to nationalizing the resource in some fashion.

Some members of Congress are threatening to ban the import of Chinese electric vehicles as the GOP searches for ways to make a bad situation worse.

May 7, 2026

Headline:

Trade Court Rules Trump’s 10% Global Tariff Is Illegal

A panel of federal judges found that President Trump could not legally impose the tariff on most imports.

No surprise whatsoever.

Anyhow, now this money will have to be refunded too. And Mad King Donny still hasn't refunded the money owed from the last such ruling.

May 13, 2026

Inflation rose to 3.8% last month with the fastest rise in prices in three years, caused by an illegal war with Iran which the demented Mad King Donny has no idea how to end.

Mad King Donny has gone to China.  It'll be a disaster. The best possible result would be if he just gets lost over there, thinks the Chinese babes are cute, decides to marry one, and stays.

Last edition:

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 3. The Wharton Way.

Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Wednesday, May 12, 1926. The May Coup.


Forces loyal to Marshal Józef Piłsudski rose up in a coup against Poland's democratically elected government in no small part due to his belief that he uniquely could and should control the country's destiny and his supporters opposition to democracy.  The coup would result in a new constitution which was in place at the outbreak of World War Two and at least theoretically in place throughout the war.

The Italian built Norge airship reached the North Pole with Roald Amundsen, pilot Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen, Lincoln Ellsworth, Italian engineer Umberto Nobile, Norwegian Navy commander Oscar Wisting and 11 other crew members.  It was the first flight over the North Pole.

The British Trades Union Congress called of its general strike.  A coal miners strike continued.

Last edition:

Saturday, May 8, 1926. First color feature film, testing a famous torpedo fuse, fire at Fenway Park, birth of Sir David Aattenborough.

Friday, May 12, 1911. On to Mexico City.

Madero was declaring that if Diaz did not step down, his forces would march on Mexico City.


Pancho Villa and Pascual Orozco, accompanied by about 150 soldiers, came to speak to Francisco Madero to demand Gen. Navarro's execution.

A Protestant pastor, the same issue of the Casper noted, apparently didn't really understand the nature of the Sacrament of Confession.

Last edition:

Thursday, May 11, 1911. Madero creates a provisional cabinet.

Wyoming AG Argues Trans Woman Can't Get Sex On Birth Certificate Changed

 Where science, nature, society, and modern delusion collide:

It’s pretty basic: Wyoming legislators should live in their own districts

 

It’s pretty basic: Wyoming legislators should live in their own districts

Monday, May 11, 2026

Thursday, May 11, 1911. Madero creates a provisional cabinet.

Francisco I. Madero set up a provisional cabinet and declared himself the head of the provisional government following the capture of Juarez by his troops.

Zapata's forces moved to encircle Cuautla in Morelos.

American site seers crossed from El Paso into Juarez to see the just captured city.


Gen. Navarro, who surrendered to the rebels at Juarez, was reinstated into the Mexican Army under Huerta.  Already in his 60s, he served one more year and retired in 1914.  He died in 1934 at age 92 and is buried in Juarez.

Taft clearly demonstrated that he had a much better understanding on what intervening in foreign locations with arms meant as compared to our current "president".

Last edition:

Wednesday, May 10, 1911. Madero takes Juarez in spite of himself.

Saturday, May 11, 1901. "Notes on Negro Music".

Professor Charles Peabody of Harvard University, an archeologist, made observations regarding the Delta Blues while in Coahoma County, Mississippi, to oversee the excavation of a Choctaw burial mound.  The black crew hired to do the war sang in the style and he published his observations under the title "Notes on Negro Music" in the Journal of American Folklore.

Peabody had been captivated by the music.

This was an interesting time in musicology in regard to the Blues, and perhaps to other music styles as well. The blues had undoubtedly been around for a very long time, but this reflected the first effort to really describe the music, which was just about to cross into northern cities in the next decade when the Great Migration began.

The Panic of 1901 had concluded.


Last edition:

Thursday, May 9, 1901. Blue Thursday.


Hegseth Is Sending Us a Warning

 

Hegseth Is Sending Us a Warning

King Donald's War, Part 5. Quagmire. The $25,000,000,000 and thirteen American lives later, "So we (but not Donald) were in Vietnam for 18 years. Iraq, many, many years....I've been doing this for...six weeks" Edition.

 

King Donny before he was a national embarrassment, and just working on being a family one.

April 30, 2026

Secretary of Defense Hegseth testified the war had cost the US $25B so far.

We clearly have absolutely no idea how to get out of it or win it.

May 1, 2026

Iran responded to King Donny's threats to ramp up the war on Iran, now in a ceasefire, with threats of their own.

They seemed rather unimpressed by Donny.

Donny's administration says it doesn't have to comply with the sixty day provision of the War Powers Act due to the ceasefire.

May 3, 2026

Iran sent the US a fourteen point peace plan.  

May 4, 2026

The U.S. rejected Iranian peace proposals and is now going to escort ships through the Straits of Hormoz.  Iran threatened to strike the ships and has already claimed to have hit a U.S. Navy craft with missiles, which the U.S. denies.

cont:

Iran attacked ships in the straits today with small surface vehicles and it resumed drone strikes on the UAE.

May 6, 2026

Yesterday was Taco Tuesday, and so we have this headline from the Tribune.


Well of course we do.  Trump's an ignorant man with extremely limited world experience with a cabinet of sycophants.  This was a war run by ignoramuses.


Trump paused his latest version of the illegal war with his escort program in the Straits of Hormuz.  We have no way out of the war that anyone in D.C. grasps.

The US has clearly and absolutely lost this war, not succeeding in a single one of its objectives.  At this point, absent ground operations, this is humiliating US defeat, worse than the loss in Vietnam.

May 7, 2026

Taco's flip on the most recent operation is because Saudi Arabia denied the US use of its airspace.

It seems to be the case that Taco didn't inform the kingdom of the operation before coming up with it.

cont:

So, now we're hitting targets in Iran again, the war we won several weeks ago, and which was definitely over before we started blockading Iran.

Compared to this, the Allied landings at Gallipoli in World War One were an absolutely stunning success.

May 10, 2026

Headline from the CST:


Let's be honest, the Administration is incompetent.  Governed by flaky theories, linked to a romantic image of the past in more ways than one, and headed by a person with dementia.  Of course it's no closer to an end.

The US sent a counter proposal to Iran. They haven't replied.

What is new is that the UK and France are deploying ships to the region in anticipation of using them to keep shipping lanes open.

We'll remind everyone once again that this war is completely illegal, and Trump should be impeached and removed from office for the illegality.

May 11, 2026

Iran's counter proposal was rejected by the US.

Last edition:

King Donald's War, Part 5. After 13/15 U.S. deaths, Hundreds of Iranian deaths, $50B spent fighting it, and a massive increase in the price of oil, King Donny surrenders to the Iranians. The "If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied" edition.