The cell phone outnumbers the landline.

 LoC Caption:  "The Story of the Telephone. Speeding the spoken word. Scene from the new American Red Cross motion picture, "Speeding the Spoken Word," in which the romance of the telephone is graphically portrayed on the screen".  1920.

The number of mobile-phone users in the U.S. surpassed the number of conventional land-based phone lines in the second half of 2004, the government said Friday.

By the end of the year, there were 181.1 million cellphone subscribers, compared with 177.9 million access lines into U.S. homes and businesses, the Federal Communications Commission said in a biannual report.

Los Angeles Times.

A person has to be careful with statistics as they can lead to incorrect assumptions.  For one thing, this may tend to lead to an erroneous assumption that the number of households with landlines is outnumbered by the number with cell phones only, which would be erroneous.  For example, our house has a landline, but all three of us who live here have cell phones.  In contrast, my son, who is in college, lives in a house in which there are no landlines in use.  There might be for internet service, but no actual landline phone. 

The point is, however, that sheer number of cell phones doesn't equate with households served only by cell phones, although that day is coming.  Indeed, the tyranny of the cell phone is at the point at which a lot of homes have one landline but a lot of cell phones.

Good, bad?

Well, both, I suppose.

FWIW, I'm actually surprised it took this long to reach this point.

The long slow death of the filibuster

The filibuster became ill in March. . .

1917.

March 8, 1917, to be exact.

That's the day that the Senate adopted the cloture rule.

Prior to the cloture rule the Senate allowed for unlimited debate.  So, in a classic filibuster, a Senator could take the floor and yap as long as he could hold out, keeping a vote from occuring.

During the Wilson Administration, however, filibusters started to prevent the Senate from doing its work. The final straw came when the Senate couldn't vote on a bill to arm merchantmen.  After that, the Senate changed the rules so that debate could be cut off by a 2/3s vote of the Senate.

And that worked for a long time, but it started breaking down in recent years.  Hence the 2013 Democratic change in the rules, and the probable 2017 elimination of it in regard to Supreme Court nominations.

Well, if the Democrats didn't want this result, .they shouldn't have brought it about, either now or in 2013.

And they don't have to.

But if they don't, they might get something they really don't want.  A Supreme Court nominee who is reserved, which means more questions would be reserved to the legislative bodies . . .which liberals don't trust.

And hence, by taking this act, they'll eliminate the anti democratic filibuster, at least in part, in the name of being anti democratic.  A move they'll likely regret, assuming that Trump can get his act together with the GOP, or rather the other way around, and there's another Supreme Court nominee during the next two years.  On that occasion, a restrained nominee, and Gorsuch is hardly immoderate, won't be necessary.

And for those counting on voter outrage. . .suggesting that there are questions that should go to the voters is hardly a position that will hurt the GOP.  And this assumes that the average voter cares about cloture at all, which is doubtful.

Today In Wyoming's History: It seemed wet

Today In Wyoming's History: It seemed wet:

The Casper Star Tribune is reporting that:

Wyoming’s three main winter months –December through February – were the wettest in the state’s recorded history, according to the National Weather Service.

Almost 5.5 inches of precipitation fell on the state this season, breaking the previous record of 4.93 inches set in 1898.

It seemed wet, that's for sure.

And its not really over yet.

 

For the first time since 1917. . . .

A bearded Col. Selah H.R. "Tommy" Tompkins at the Juarez Racetrack in 1919, a post Punitive Expedition incident in which the US crossed into Mexico.  Known as "Pink Whiskers", the beareded Tompkis was from a distinguished military family.  This photo is surprising in that by this time beards were no longer allowed in the U.S. Army.

the Army may allow men to grow beards.

Once very common amongst American soldiers, by 1917 they'd disappeared in junior enlisted men and were uncommon in senior enlisted men, although not wholly unknown.  They were still worn by some officers.  But they became a casualty of gas during World War One.  You can't easily seal a gas mask if you have a beard.  So, by wars end, troops were clean shaven as a rule, and in the US case, they certainly were shortly after the US entered the war.

But gas has pretty much disappeared as a weapon of war. And there's an exception, as there should be, for Sikhs in the US military. So, the logic goes, they ought to be allowed for everyone.

The problem remains gas.  At least CS gas, which is tear gas.  The US has deployed tear gas on the battlefield at least as recently as the Vietnam War.  That's not consider a violation of the rules of war, as its not lethal.  National Guardsmen certainly risk being exposed to tear gas if they are called out for riot suppression.  And poison gas, even if a rarity, still exists as a potential weapon, so that must be taken into consideration, or at least should be.

Blog Mirror: The Winter of ’16-17

An interesting item on the winter of 1916-17, in Europe:

The Winter of ’16-17

January 9, 2017 by Robert Mackay Leave a Comment

This is an extraordinary winter in Canada, where even on the west coast there have been weeks of freezing weather. In Europe, the cold and snow is reaching as far south as the Mediterranean.

Budget chicken?

From the Star Tribune, regarding proposed cuts by the Legislature in education funding.  Supposedly this is just a strategy move on the part of the sponsors to force something in terms of cuts they are angling for and won't actually occur:

Official: Cut could result in‘bloodbath’ 

Natrona County may see sizeable reduction

SETH KLAMANN 
307-266-0544,
seth.klamann@trib.com
A Senate budget provision that would cut $91 million from schools in Wyoming could result in a “bloodbath” of layoffs in Natrona County, the school board chairman said Tuesday.

Irrespective of whether the move is strategic or not, this seems like a dangerous game to be playing.  Granted, the State hasn't found a way to carry the freight for education now that the coal train is derailed, but if this passes (and I don't think it will, and I don't think the Governor would allow it to carry through and we'd be right on to a special session), its hard to credit the concept that we're going to do something to diversify our economy if we're going to slash education for those who will soon be in that economy.

Exercising the 1950 Soviet Option. Democratic blundering just keeps on, keeping on.

Senate Republicans, as we recall, held up, or actually prevented, the vote on Barack Obama's final Supreme Court nominee.

Now some Democrats are taking a similar position in regards to Trumps nominees of all types, and at least the New York Times has declared war on Trump's nomination of Justice Gorsuch.  Consider their editorial of February 1:

So what can Democrats do? 

First, they need to make sure that the stolen Supreme Court seat remains at the top of the public’s consciousness. When people hear the name “Neil Gorsuch,” as qualified as he may be, they should associate him with a constitutionally damaging power grab.

Second, Democrats should not weigh this nomination the same way that they’ve weighed previous ones. This one is different. The presumption should be that Gorsuch does not deserve confirmation, because the process that led to his nomination was illegitimate.

Wow.

So is that the approach the Democrats should take?

Only if they're as dense as a box of rocks.

But, so far, the Democratic leadership has been showing itself to be rather granitic in outlook.

Gorsuch isn't what many feared.  Hes a solid textualist and quite frankly an excellent nominee.  Fans of democracy, which Democrats and Liberals generally, frankly, are not (they prefer a Liberal, Imperial, Court), should rejoice.  Gorsuch himself notes that a good Justice should never like all of his own opinions.  Basically, his view is that the law is to be applied as written, and if people don't like the law, they ought to get in touch with their representatives and change it.

You'd think people in favor of the franchise would think, yeah!, nifty!

Well, the Democrats don't think that, as truth be known, they don't really trust voters to "do the right thing" as they see it. No, they trust the courts to tell people what they ought to think and make it the law.  Right now, they truly believed they were on the verge of an extreme liberal revolution in which the Court would hold there are no genders of any kind, there are no borders, etc., and we were on our way to a genderless, self defined society.

Well, we aren't.

And that's what they think was "stolen" from them.

And now the plan, at least on some nominations, is to sit around and do nothing.

Which was the Soviet Union's plan when the United Nations met to consider the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950.

The USSR had a Security Council veto.  But it walked out of the UN in protest of action being considered and more particularly as Red China was not admitted, at that time, to the UN. And, accordingly, the UN adopted a resolution to enter the war on South Korea's side, the one and only time that's ever been done by the UN.

The USSR could have stopped that, by showing up.  It didn't, as having a snit seemed like the thing to do over its view about Chinese admission.

Which is what the Democrats are now doing.

If they don't act, as a minority, the result will be. . . .well the result will be that the Republican Senate will give Trump everything he asks for without any Democratic input.

The Republican, or at least Trumpist, dream.

Why would they do that?

Well, why would they pit two elderly white candidates against each other, one of whom was detested on a wide scale, insult Catholics and Jews, and all that?

Should they make sure that the "stolen" seat remains in the public consciousness?  They should, by showing up. But they also ought to keep in mind that the public isn't that impressed by the Court.  Generally, the public thinks it knows best and the Court doesn't. The public also thinks that a collection of elderly jurists is unlikely to know what people under, oh, . . .let's say 60, think about what they want to the country to look like.  In other words, most people don't think Justice Kennedy is a cool hipster.  Maybe they think that about Ruth Bader Ginsberg. . . . 

So, in a fight over Gorsuch, what the Times implicitly suggests, is that the public ought to be reminded of all the decisions that have taken votes away from legislatures in the name of redefining society.  And that will appeal to the Times' readers, as they fear the American electorate.

But maybe the Democrats ought to consider that it really isn't 1973 anymore.  And maybe they ought to get outside a bit, if only to the zoo or park, where nature is.

The anti democratic court was likely the deciding factor in the 2016 Presidential election.  The Democrats don't seem to realize that.  For the first time since the late 1960s, really, Catholics voted somewhat as a block. Hispanics, most of whom are culturally Catholic, defected from the Democrats in surprising numbers.  45% of women, including vast numbers of young women for whom 1973 doesn't stand out to their demographic any longer like 1776, 1793 or 1917 does to some demographics, did so in larger numbers.  The anti democratic Supreme Court was responsible for a lot of that, and those voters, who want to keep a say and who have a more realistic view of life and nature than the Court, and the Democratic Party, acted accordingly.

The Democrats pointing that out is a good idea. . . . for the Republicans. 

Century Delayed Synchronicity?

The New York Times is reporting today that demonstrations spontaneously broke out in at least one airport yesterday over President Donald Trump's Executive Order (now stayed, maybe, by a Federal Court) barring entry by citizens of certain nations.

And yesterday, we reported here, on the start of three days of rioting, in 1917, over the recently imposed delousing policy of the United States on the Mexican border.  What we didn't note, but likely should have, is that rioting spread from El Paso to at least one other border town.

Anyhow, interesting sort of similarities.  It isn't history strictly repeating itself, but history rarely does that.  But it's in the same room.  Entrants from another nation that was experiencing a civil war and policies regarding the same.

And both at ports of entry.

The Wyoming Legislature. Remembering to wait awhile.

Unlike Congress, the small size of Wyoming's legislature means that a lot of bills get introduced.

I was going to comment on several that were floating around, but they died or were withdrawn before I could do that.

Which brings this up.

This year there's been a lot of angst over certain bills, some of which is fully justified. The proposed amendment to the state Constitution, for example, was one to definitely worry about.

But most of the odder or controversial bills in the state legislature go nowhere.  People get up in arms about them, but they expire.

The wind tax, for example, went nowhere.  A bill to attempt to address potential discrimination against government employees who find it unconscionable to participate in some fashion, in their official roles, in homosexual unions, was withdrawn by its sponsor.  That one received such attention that you'd have thought it authorized burning at the stake, or something, but it didn't, and the fact that its a difficult topic and the law is difficult to draft was acknowledged by the author in its withdrawal.  One pending right now that would require people to use only the bathroom of the gender reflected on their birth certificate is likely not going to go anywhere, even though its still pending.

This serves, I guess, as a reminder that a person really needs to take a wait and see, sometimes, view towards the legislature.

Not always, of course.

But unlike Congress, which has a highly decentralized and anti democratic method of drafting, folding and mutilating legislation, a lot more stuff gets down on the floor of the legislature before it evaporates. 

And actually, Congress would function better if it functioned more that way.  At least it would let you know what your representation was really doing, and it'd mean there were more consequences for them for what they were doing at that.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Today Mostly Fact – Not Much Fiction

From Wyoming Fact and Fiction, a difficult question:

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Today Mostly Fact – Not Much Fiction: The news dominating Wyoming right now   -  The Legislature is in session, I hope to visit in the next couple of weeks and sit in on some ...