Monday, June 24, 1901. Oil in Oklahoma.

A mere thirty days after the Creek National Council had ratified an agreement to cede its land to the Federal government, oil was struck on those lands in Oklahoma Territory at Red Fork.

The gusher would be responsible for the transformation of Tulsa into a major city.

Philippine General Juan Cailles surrendered to the United States along with 650 of his men.

American nurse Clara Maass, serving in Cuba, volunteered to be bitten by a malarial mosquito as part of medical research.  She'd contract the disease and die. She was 25 years old.

Last edition:

Saturday, June 22, 1901. Mixed loyalties.

Labels: 1900s, 1901, Canada, Crime, Heroes, Loyalist, Ontario, Ontario (Niagara Falls), Texas, Texas (Laredo), War of 1812

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 6. The screwworm edition.

Exports of petroleum products and capital goods jumped to record highs reducing the U.S. trade deficit. 

The capital goods item is interesting and I haven't seen it explained. That is a positive trend, if sustainable. The oil exportation one is not as it depletes a diminishing resource at the expense of U.S. consumers. A lot of it seems to be related to AI exports, which isn't necessarily good, aircraft production, and war related purchases.  If all that is correct, it won't be sustainable at the current levels, probably.

Screwworms have reappeared in Texas after a sixty year hiatus.  The Trump administration is blaming the Biden Administration, as that's its default thing to do, but the Trumpistas lifted protections that were in place and allowed importation of Mexican cattle via ports in a probable attempt to lower beef prices. This is likely to have the opposite effect.  It's a more likely cause, although there were concerns about animals moving across the border illegally during the Biden Administration.

Mexico itself was screwworm free as of 1991.  Somehow that got reversed one way or another, and now the problem is back.  Given that, it probably was coming back no matter what.  It is a major crisis.

Nobody has cited the weather, but it is spread by a fly, and that may very well have resulted to the spread of the flies range.

Inflation is up to 4.2%.

cont:

Reporter: Are you concerned, Mr. President, about the latest inflation number which came out this morning?

Trump: No, I love it. I love the inflation.

Johnson is already saying that's not what he meant.

June 14, 2026

Indeed, this would be horrible news:

Wyoming Outfitters, Hunters Say Screwworm Would Be Wildlife Disaster If It Hits State

And Carney continues to press for the new reality of American unreliability.

‘A global rupture’: Carney calls for Canada-EU unity before G7 summit

Canada’s prime minister has warned that the ‘rules-based’ global order is ‘breaking down’ amid superpower dominance.

June 19, 2026

Those of us in the livestock industry should pray for rain.  We also ought to realize that voting for climate change deniers like Harriet Hageman is basically putting a knife to the through our our children, and then cutting their arteries.

Wyoming Ranchers Pray For Rain As Drought, Demand Push Beef To Record High Prices

Drought?  Get real.  This isn't a normal drought.

June 22, 2026

Senate overwhelmingly passes sweeping bipartisan housing affordability bill

A rare distributist bill.  It bans private equity acquisition of homes.

It will be challenged 

Senate overwhelmingly passes sweeping bipartisan housing affordability bill

Last edition:

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

Labels: Distributism, Donald Trump, Economics, Petroleum, Subsidiarity, Taxes, The Law of Unintended Consequences, The Second Trump Administration, Wyoming, Wyoming's boom and bust economy, Yeoman's Fourth Law of History

Sunday, March 31, 1946. Arresting Nazis, Russia pays up, you have to wonder about Дональд, Field Marshall Gort passes.

7,000 Allied soldiers served warrants on Nazi officials.  Ausgezeichnet!

The first Greek elections since 1936 took place, with the Communist Party of Greece refusing to participate.  

Russia, as a political subdivision of the USSR, paid its U.N. dues of $1,725,000, under the thesis that the USSR had multiple representation in the UN.

Trump would probably support an effort of Russia not to pay, which was feared at the time, sending the leader of the nation a Я люблю тебя, Дональд note, like he does in an implied way to the current leader of Russia constantly.

What's up with that?

Field Marshal John Standish Surtees Prendergast Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort became yet another World War Two senior officer to die following the war, albeit his death was due to liver cancer.

He was a recipient of the Victoria Cross in World War One.

Last edition:

Monday, January 14, 1946. Wartime and Post War foodstuffs.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Army, Cartoons, Iran, J.R. Williams, Mountain Troops, Personalities, The Cold War, U.S. Navy, United States, USSR, World War Two

Thursday, February 5, 1976. Swine Flu and Conrail.

Just as with the 1916 Flu Epidemic, the 1976 Swine Flu Outbreak commenced on an Army post, when Private David Lewis died of the disease.

President Ford signed the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act into law creating the Consolidated Rail Corporation to operate freight trains in the northeastern United States.  The act united much of the rail systems of the Penn Central, Ann Arbor Railroad, Erie Lackawanna Railway, Lehigh Valley Railroad, Reading Company, Central Railroad of New Jersey and Lehigh and Hudson River Railway into Conrail.

Last edition:

Monday,. February 2, 1976. Moynihan resigns.

Labels: 1970s, 1976, Government, Personalities, United Nations

Teton County deluged with ‘a lot of flu’

Headline from the CST.

Thursday, November 5, 1925. The Big Parade.

 

Released on this day in 1925, the film is regarded as one of the greatest films about World War One.

The picture also would be associated with a level of tragedy for its stars.  John Gilbert died in 1936 at age 38 due to alcoholism.  He managed to marry four times in his short life, and was not married at the time of his death.  His costar in the film, Renee Adoree made the transition to sound movies, but died in 1933 at age 35 of tuberculosis.  She'd married twice, but was not married at the time of her death.

Born in the Russian Empire, with his true name never definitively learned, Sidney Reilly, a British spy, was executed by the Soviets.

He had a prolific career as a spy, leading to his nickname as The Ace of Spies.  He was reported a model for James Bond.  Early in his life as an emigre he went by the last name of Rosenblum, which would suggest Jewish heritage.  In the late 19th Century he seems to have worked for Scotland Yard as a paid informant on immigrant matters.  He married widow Margaret Thomas at Holborn Registry Office in London in 1898 after her husband had died under conditions that suggested poisoning, something of note as Rosenblum was working as sort of a herbalist at the time.  She was wealthy and that, by extension, made him wealthy.  Soon after that, he began his career as a spy, spying for the British and the Japanese in the lead up to the Russo Japanese War.

While it is difficult to determine the range of his activities, it is claimed that:

• He pretended to be a Russian arms merchant to spy on Dutch weapons shipments to the Boers during the Boer War.
• He obtained intelligence on Russian military defences in Manchuria for the Kempeitai.
• He obtained Persian oil concessions for the British Admiralty in events surrounding the D'Arcy Concession.
• He infiltrated a Krupp armaments plant in prewar Germany and stole weapon plans.
• He seduced the wife of a Russian minister to glean information about German weapons shipments to Russia.
• He attempted to overthrow the Russian Bolshevik government and to rescue the imprisoned Romanov family, actions which lead to his being sentenced to death in absentia.
• He served as a courier to transport the forged Zinoviev letter into the United Kingdom.

He had been lured by into the Soviet Union by the Cheka, posing as anti Soviet agents.

It's difficult to tell the overall truth of his activities.  British intelligence is notoriously able to keep its secrets for one thing.  Reilly was good at keeping them as well, and as he worked for various entities he had a strong reason to.  Like the James Bond character that's supposedly based upon him, he had a strong affinity for women and married up to three or four times, with other alleged affairs in addition.  His last marriage was to actress Pepita Bobadilla.

Last edition:

Wednesday, November 4, 1925. Now or then?

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 Election, Democratic Party, History repeating itself or at least rhyming, New Jersey, New York

Wyoming reports first measles case since 2010

Wyoming reports first measles case since 2010: Infected child may have exposed people in Casper hospital’s ER waiting room to highly contagious virus.

Saturday, May 24, 1975. Virus variola major.

The last naturally occurring case of the smallpox virus variola major was found on a woman named Saiban Bibi in the Assam state of India. 

The last case of variola minor was found in Somalia, at Merca, in October 1977.

The elimination of the disease is a scientific triumph that occured in an era in which the lethality of diseases was still widely appreciated.  

Last edition:

Friday, May 23, 1975. Leaving Laos.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, 1990s, 1992, Cambodia, Crime, Diplomacy, Gerald Ford, Laos, Laotian Civil War, Lebanon, Refugees, Unions, United States, Vietnam

A Disturbing Trifecta

The weekend shows were unsettling, to say the least.

Economic chaos was referenced in all three shows.

On This Week, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who sounds like a dimwit in spite of a fairly impressive set of credentials, indicated that the tariff exception for electronics is only temporary until the government comes out with targeted tariffs on them of some sort.

On Meet The Press, investor and author Ray Dalio pretty much predicated a depression, and perhaps a global war of some sort.

On Face the Nation Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, clinically said the economy is going in the toilet.

Also on Face the Nation, recently resigned Dr. Peter Marks, the creator of Operation Warp Speed, went after Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on his measles response with both barrels, and reloaded four or five times.  He also related Kennedy's promise to figure out the cause of autism by fall as absurd.

Nifty.

RFK, Jr. opines that the best protection against measles is the breast milk from an unvaccinated woman. . .

presumably with the recipient being an infant, of course.

This is seriously weird.

At this point in time, the United States is being run by dimwit weirdos.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 76th Edition. Keeping them in the sky, with measles, and down on the metaphorical farm.

KEEP CALM AND FLY ON Experts say despite recent incidents, commercial flights are safe

No, Trump isn't responsible for this, but it is oddly synchronicitous that at the same time the Trump regime is attacking the government, aircraft keep crashing.

Again, it isn't his fault.  

But if Biden was President, you can be sure that Trump would blame him.

Update:

And a scary near miss incident today.

Measles outbreak surfaces in Texas Infection can lead to serious complications including pneumonia and blindness

Almost everyone was unvaccinated.

Gee, what a surprise.

Elsewhere, there's a claim, and its pretty unverified, that a FBI whistleblower has revealed that the Epstein files are being purged at the FBI.  MAGAs immediately leaped to the conclusion that this must be because they hold all sorts of dirty secrets about the Democrats and now the Q files will at last be revealed.

Funny, if that's happening, and I have no reason to believe it is, my assumption would be that after Patel taking over the FBI, if that's happening, it wouldn't be files about the Democrats they were seeking to hide. . . 

Trump, of course, was a frequent flyer on the Lolita Express and that brings up something that occured to me today while reading what the WFC is up to.  As noted in another thread, they've passed the "keep 'em ignorant bill" in the legislature, as they fear that the requirement to report to school districts with curriculum might reveal that some people's home school program is limited to a children's edition of the King James Bible.  This seems set to pass, and some must be lamenting that the WFC wasn't as strong in 2023, when the legislature had the temerity to outlaw child marriages.  Gosh, now that we're in the golden age we could have kept the children uneducated and pregnant, or at least the girl ones.

Who voted against outlawing child brides.  Here's who:  Dockstader, Baldwin, Kinsky, Hicks, Steinmetz, Biteman, Salazar, Ide, French, Kolb, Hutchings, McKeown, Allemand, Allred, Angelos, Banks, Bear, Davis, Haroldson, Heiner, Hornok, Jennings, Knapp, Locke, Neiman, Ottman, Pendergraft, Penn, Rodriguez-Williams, Singh, Slagle, Smith, Strock, Styvar, Tarver, Ward, Winter.

Some usual WFC suspects there.

Cont

Funny how quickly things develop.  Now both Democrats and Republicans are lobbying Pam Bondi to release the Epstein files, which she had stated were "on her desk".

And yet, they haven't been.

She had said she was waiting on a directive from King Donny, a buddy of the late procuror. 

Come on Pam. Release the info.

Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 75th Edition. Dim Wit.

Labels: Canada, Donald Trump, Errare humanum est, Europe, Hockey, Politics, Populism, Sic transit Gloria Mundi, Sports, The Second Trump Administration, Zeitgeist

Sunday, February 1, 1925. Balto, the future King Zog, wild party in Laramie.

The final leg of the serum run began with Gunnar Kaasen setting out with lead dog Balto.  The Norwegian born Kaasen is the only musher who became famous due to the event.

The story made the first page of the Tribune:

A party in Laramie had apparently gotten out of control.

Ahmed Zog became the first President of Albania. He'd later be its first king. . . sort of a cautionary tale there.

Irish President W. T. Cosgrave appealed to the United States for food aid as the country's potato crop had been severely reduced due to excess rain.

Last edition:

Saturday, January 31, 1925. Leonhard Seppala and Togo.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 Serum Run, Alaska, Animals, Art, Daily Living, Dogs, Kven people, Lapp people, tools and appliances, Transportation, Trucks

Friday, January 30, 1925. Antitoxin runs out in Nome.

Diphtheria antitoxin ran out in Nome. The serum run had reached Kaltag.

Turkey exiled Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Constantine VI to Greece

The Khost Rebellion in Afghanistan ended with the reign of King Amanullah Khan intact.

A national news media frenzy started when Cave explorer Floyd Collins became trapped in Sand Cave, Kentucky.  The story went on for days, but did not conclude happily.

High winds blew a train off of a viaduct in County Donegal, Ireland, killing four people.

Last edition:

Thursday, January 29, 1925. 裁軍 and Flapper Fanny.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1930s, 1940s, Cartoons, China, Chinese Warlord Era, Shanghai, The Roaring Twenties, Women

Tuesday, January 27, 1925. The 1925 Serum Run.

Two mushers and 150 dogs began the relay transportation of diphtheria antitoxin to the remote town of Nome, Alaska

Gunnar Kaasen with his lead dog Balto.

The event became the basis of the Iditarod sled dog race.

Leonhard Seppala with his dogs, lead dog, Togo, on the far left.  Togo was the lead dog in the most dangerous portions of the trial.

The run saved numerous lives.  The total number of people who died in the diphtheria outbreak is unknown.

The January Junta was established in Chile to restore Arturo Alessandrio to power.

Last edition:

Monday, January 26, 1925. Actors and Actresses born, Trotsky gets a pink slip.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, actors and actresses, Leon Trotsky, Red Army, USSR

Friday, January 16, 1925. Leadbelly released from prison and some Italians got to vote a lot.

Huddie Ledbetter, aka "Lead Belly", was granted a full pardon by Texas Governor Pat Morris Neff  Neff for having served the minimum seven years of his prison sentence for the 1918 killing of Will Stafford, a relative of his, in a fight over a woman.

It was a least his second period of incarceration, with  his first being in 1915 for carrying a handgun, something that would not be a crime now.  

While in prison for homicide, he'd be stubbled in the neck by another inmate, resulting in a permanent scar.

The pardon came about due to Ledbetter writing the Governor and seeking the same, and the Governor visiting him more than once in prison.

Ledbetter would return to prison in 1930 for attempted homicide and 1939 for assault.

Perhaps not a pacific man, he was the greatest American folk musician and one of the greatest blue musicians of all time.  He was personally responsible for the survival of the twelve string guitar.  He was principally a bluesman, but the blues had not quite stabilized into its form at the time, and not all of his music fits the genera.  Indeed, this so much the case that at least one of his songs that is typically preformed as a blue piece, The Midnight Special, was not performed quite that way by Leadbelly.  He became known to the general public due to John Lomax's recordings of him in 1933, at which time he was again in prison.

Leadbelly was born in Louisiana in 1888 or 1889, and died of Lou Gehrigs disease in 1946 at age 61 or 62.  He took to music early and learned to paly the mandolin, accordion, guitar, harmonica, Jew’s harp, piano, and organ, with his principal instructor's being his uncles, Bob and Terrell Ledbetter.

His songs are widely preformed to this day, and once were part of the American music canon taught to school children.  Interestingly enough, he's associated with the first recorded use of the word "woke", in a spoken item after a song in which he stated; "So I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there—best stay woke, keep their eyes open."

Italy passed a bill giving double votes to academians, professors, those with diplomas, knights, military officers, those with any military decorations, officeholders, certain business personnel, all those paying a direct tax of 100 lira or more, and fathers of at least five children, triple votes to members of the royal family, members of high nobility, cardinals, highly decorated war veterans, high officeholders, or anyone who met three conditions for double votes. 

Last edition:

Thursday, January 15, 1925. Trotsky gets canned, Ross addresses the legislature.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 Wyoming Legislative Session, Communism, James Dean Effect, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Nellie Tayloe Ross, Politics, USSR, Wyoming

Wednesday, November 25, 1874. Joe Gans

Joe Gans was born in Baltimore Maryland.  He was the greatest lightweight boxer of all time.  

He died of tuberculosis at age 35 on August 10, 1910.  His tombstone reads:

I was born in the city of Baltimore in the year 1874, and it might be well to state at this time that my right name is Joseph Gant, not Gans. However, when I became an object of newspaper publicity, some reporter made a mistake and my name appeared as Joe Gans, and as Joe Gans it remained ever since.

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 24, 1874. Barbed Wire Patented.

Labels: 1870s, 1874, Agriculture, technology

Saturday, November 1, 1924. Political, and real, warfare.

It was Saturday.

Country Gentleman's cover was a follow-up from the prior week's.

Sultan bin Saqr Al Qasimi II invaded the Emirate of Sharjah resulting in the overthrow of  Khalid bin Ahmad Al Qasimi, who had been the Emir since 1914.

Sharjah was one of the Trucial States under British protectorate status. It is now one of the United Arab Emirates.

He'd find his rule ineffective as he was ignored by Beudoins and Khalid retained support.  He remained the titular rule, however, until his death in 1951.

The Royal Air Force introduced its Meteorological Flight Service.

Éamon de Valera was sentenced to a month in prison for entering Ulster illegally.

Frontier lawman Bill Tilghman, age 70, was shot and killed by drunken prohibition agement Wiley Lynn, who obviously wasn't that dedicated to the cause of his employment. Tilghman would lie in State in the Oklahoma state house.  Lynn would escape conviction, pleading self defense, but was killed in a gunfight in 1932.

The days headline did, and did not, read like today's.

Last edition:

Thursday, October 30, 1924. King maker.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1924 Election, Calvin Coolidge, Chinese Warlord Era, Ireland, Irish Army Mutiny, Irish Free State, Personalities