Showing posts with label Internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Internet. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 13, 2026

Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 9. Operation Quiet Piggy.


You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom

Matthew, Chapter 24.

There is nothing they [Russian leaders] admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness.

Winston S. Churchill, The Sinews of Peace

October 13, 2026

Russo Ukrainian War

The term is so good, it's time for a new edition.  Some wag has termed the Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian data farms "Operation Quiet Piggy".

And, in fact, some well known anti Trump pundits noted a big drop off on spam bots on Twitter right away.

Hmm. . . 

Last edition:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 8. Donald Trump, China's (and Russia's) greatest ally edition.

Friday, September 25, 2026

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 158th Edition. How the Internet Emphases the Absurd and Marginal and Make it seem Significant. Pastor Brian Sauvé

Holy Women at Christ's Tomb, Annibale Carracci.

One Brian Sauvé, senior pastor at Refuge Church in Ogden, Utah, has been much on the net recently due to some comments he made on vlog or some sort of web based video show providing for all to see how the net has served to emphasize the absurd and marginal, serving to make it seem like a big deal.

Refuge Church is a "Reformed Protestant" Church and Sauvé  describes himself as "Reformed and Protestant, Paedobaptist, Postmillennial, and Patriarchal".  The church describes itself as basically a solo scriptura group holding to 66 books of the Bible, rather than 73, which means that the don't believe in the 66 books of the Bible as the New Testament itself describes how sola scriptura is invalid and the omitted books that a German monk, who should never have been that, took out were done so based on his prejudice and a misunderstanding on what books of the Old Testament the Apostles were referring to.

Patriarchal Sauvé certainly is.  And extremely so.

Sauvé in a September 18 podcast stated the following:

Women either shouldn't be on social media or any social media they have should be kind of a walled garden situation where some competent man is curating and blocking and directing and taking a look at what's going on.  I have access to my wife's social media accounts and I have blocked—this is not an exaggeration—thousands of accounts. Thousands of them. She generally has very little idea of what is going on in the real social media because I've created a walled garden of cute goat videos.

We have normalcy bias in a certain direction.  We consider normal what is actually insane. We consider normal women having unsupervised access to one another all the time. That's not normal.

We consider normal women having political rule. We consider normal women living unattached from a male—like a father, then a husband—for lengthy periods of time. You could fill in the blank with all of these modern feminist outworkings of the original feminist vision and what they've done is they've made women anxious, psychotic, depressed, miserable, and genocidally evil. And we just go, "Oh, that's normal.'"

People are going to hear me talking about, as my wife's head, monitoring her social media, and they're going to be like, "Brian is such a tyrant." You have normalcy bias for insane world. You're living in an insane asylum and you think it's the normal world and I'm saying, "No, we don't live in the insane asylum. We do what people did for thousands of years before today."

The interview went on and discussed how "crazy" it was to allow women to vote, something Hegseth fan boy has said of Doug Wilson in Idaho.

Unlike Wyoming, the least religious state in the country, Utah is the most religious state in the Union, and its religious landscape is dominated by the Latter Day Saints.  It's not as Mormon as it once was, however, with about 55% of the residents of the state being in that faith.  Culturally, however, they dominate it.  Catholics are about 5%.  About 25% claim no particular faith.The rest are mostly some sort of Protestant but there are, of course, Jews, Muslims, etc.

About 63% of the residents of Ogden are LDS.  Catholics make up almost 9% of the population there.  The rest would mostly be some sort of Protestant.

We'd note that Mormons, which Sauvé is not, are extremely socially conservative generally.  That's important to note as while, at least in my experience, Mormons and some conservative Protestant religions do not get along, the overall cultural conservatism of Mormonism heavily impacts the Jello Belt.  I'm not saying that to be mean or critical.  Utah has some of the most well kept towns, including small towns, in the country and as a rule Mormons don't go in for the weird cultural silliness that is part of the current zeitgeist.  Without condoning the tenants of their faith, their faith also causes them to have what some folks refer to as "nice families", as other conservative religious groups sometimes to.  You'd probably have to get into Traditional Catholics in order to find a similarly family oriented well kept group of people.

The Culture of a People reflects upon the place they live.  The views that Sauvé are not all that radical in the locality in which he is speaking them, as they reflect sort of broadly on the LDS, and specifically on some of the LDS, although most LDS would not hold them to the extreme that he does.

Now, as should be obvious, Pastor Sauvé is extremely socially conservative.  Why should we care?

We shouldn't.

The church is indicated as having a "mid sized" congregation.  His congregation ought to care what he thinks, and chances are they believe exactly what he does.  This sort of extreme patriarchal view is quite limited and goes way beyond what even very conservative members of various other Christian faiths typically believe.  It's also ironic in that women more than men were the foundation of the early Faith.  Women brought men to it. There's a reason that Mary Magdalene is the "Apostle to the Apostles".  And there's a reason that St. Brigid is so closely associated with St. Patrick.

But then, I'm an Apostolic Christian where strong women are the norm.  Protestants can keep John Calvin, we'll take Joan d'Arc.


And Protestants can keep telling us that we shouldn't ask Mary for help, we're going to keep doing so.

Virgin Mary at Zetum

Such a diminished view of women is odd, and sad.

It's also cultural and malformed.

But here's the thing.  It's the Internet that has given voice to stuff like this. But for that, Sauve would be an unknown Protestant Pastor in the Jello Belt.  Probably a lot of people in his own city wouldn't be able to tell you anything about him.  I couldn't tell you anything about the two large warehouse type churches' pastors here.  I'm sure that there are Protestants around here who hold the same beliefs.  I just don't know who they are, and there aren't many of them.

The Internet is really giving voice to a lot of things, ideas and people who shouldn't have one.  I don't know if Sauve was known before, but there's a whole host of like minded Protestants who show up on blogs all the time and spark Internet outrage. That outrage then circulates their message.

It's the same with people like Nick Fuentes, whose message is political and not religious, although there is some of that mixed in.  But for the Internet, he'd just be a barely employed oddball.  

It's one of the real challenges of our time.  We need to ignore these people.  They don't deserve a national audience.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 157th Edition. Press Revolt and other matters.

Saturday, March 14, 2026

Have some of you seen any daylight recently?

 


This is amusing.  Chloe Winters is not unattractive, but the married Galwegian dresses like what she is, a market gardener.  It's a dirty job.  Her only adornment, normally, is a cross denoting her Christianity.

The fact that she's getting hit on for gardening videos. . . well it's just sad.

Thursday, August 7, 2025

Stop the presses: Wyoming press corps suffers historic blow

Stop the presses: Wyoming press corps suffers historic blow: Uinta, Platte, Niobrara, Goshen and Sublette counties become "news deserts" as News Media Corp shutters eight local Wyoming newspapers with no notice. The oldest had been in print for 122 years. Thirty people lost jobs.

This is sad indeed. 

This is part of a long term trend. . . the death of the written newspaper, and its a feature of the evolution of technology.

It's also part of what's made the United States a meaner, ruder, and stupider society in recent years.

Small town newspapers once thrived.  Every town had a newspaper, and even minor cities had more than one. Casper had two daily newspapers for years.  When traveling, one of the things I always used to do was to buy a local newspaper, usually first thing in the morning.  I'd normally read it as I ate breakfast.  For that matter, lots of cafes had newspaper machines there in anticipation of people doing just that.

Now my local paper, barely hanging on, comes to me with a digital format.  It's a shadow of its former self.

Also specter like is respect for the press.  People have always tended to hate the press, just as they hate lawyers, but for a different reason.  People don't like having their dirty laundry aired in public, even if they like looking at the dirty laundry of others, and people always feel that bad news is, somehow, a conspiracy.  But when the news was mostly distributed by print media, people still had to largely accept that the news was real.

This started to erode even when the internet was in its infancy.  Buffoons like Rush Limbaugh, who came on the radio and spouted propaganda, began to be taken as news.  Now they're everywhere.  People who'd prefer to get their news from the high school locker-room, for instance, can listen to Joe Rogan.  Fox News and  the like can provide streams of one sided blather a la Tass or the Völkischer Beobachter.  People, who don't really like to be distressed by the news, can take comfort in these sources that tell them exactly what they want to hear.

What they won't be hearing much about is local events, as the local papers pass away.

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Tuesday, July 1, 1975. ARPANET.


The ARPANET, the proto Internet, was declared operational within the Department of Defense.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Former President Richard Nixon said, in an affidavit to federal court, that he had secretly begun taping Oval Office conversations at the suggestion of his predecessor, President Lyndon Johnson.

Advice columnist Ann Landers announced that she and her husband were divorcing.

The name "Ann Landers" was a pen name, and was actually started by the Chicago Sun Times for their advice columnist Ruth Crowley, who died in 1955 at age 48.  After that, the column was taken over by Esther Pauline Lederer, who is the person commonly associated with the pen name.

Lederer early in her career as Ann Landers.

Lederer's twin sister, Pauline Esther Phillips,  followed her lead and started writing as Abigail Van Buren shortly thereafter, leading to a longstanding rift between the two.

It's hard to appreciate the extent to which both sisters, Lederer in particular, became major cultural figures.  Both sisters associated with cultural figures of the the day.

Last edition:

Monday, June 30, 1975. Changes in the Service.

Saturday, September 7, 2024

Subsidiarity Economics 2024. The times more or less locally, Part 3. The Decarbonizing the West and Electronic eartags Edition.


From CattleTags.com

June 18, 2024

Governor Gordon, who has spoken on his decarbonization initiative, has released his report.

Governor Gordon Releases WGA Decarbonization Initiative Findings

June 12, 2024

Governor Mark Gordon, Chair of the Western Governors’ Association (WGA), today released the report containing findings of his Decarbonizing the West initiative during the association’s 40th Anniversary meeting in Olympic Valley, CA. Governor Gordon launched the initiative a year ago to examine how decarbonization strategies can position western states at the forefront of innovation, reduce CO2 in the atmosphere, and strengthen their economies. The initiative explored a wide range of engineered decarbonization approaches as well as natural sequestration through enhanced land and agriculture management practices.


“Western Governors have a longstanding tradition of addressing complicated issues in thoughtful and bipartisan ways that often lead to national policy reform,” Governor Gordon said, “This topic is not simple. I chose it because it’s important to gain a comprehensive understanding of strategies and technologies that can be utilized in managing carbon.”


Governor Gordon’s hope is to advance environmentally sound and economically reasonable, practical paths to address decarbonization. He is an all-of-the-above energy policy leader, focused on the necessity of ensuring hungry power grids continue to be fed — for the good of his home state and the nation. Yesterday, the Governor joined community leaders and power industry executives, including Bill Gates, in Kemmerer, Wyo. at a groundbreaking for Terra Power’s Natrium reactor demonstration project.


While introducing the initiative at the conference, Governor Gordon thanked Governors Brad Little (R-ID), Jared Polis (D-CO), and Tina Kotek (D-OR) for hosting workshops in their respective states this year. The decarbonization report is a culmination of information gathered at the four workshops and existing WGA policy.


“The diversity of our states represents opportunities for each of us to pursue as we collectively work toward decarbonizing the west,” Governor Gordon wrote in a letter to WGA members, Governor Gordon noted the range of pathways on display at each of the workshops including:


  • Gillette, WY: Tour of Integrated Test Center, where cutting edge carbon capture technologies are being tested.
  • Boise, ID: Focus discussions of Forestry, agriculture, and soil management can play a role in sequestration.
  • Denver, CO: Focus discussions on innovative direct air capture technologies currently being tested in western states.
  • Portland, OR: Focus discussions regarding carbon sequestration potential of coastal ecosystems and how biomass can be utilized to remove carbon dioxide.

“These conversations formed the basis for the policy recommendations outlined in the report,”  Governor Gordon said, “It’s my hope they spur common-sense policy reform. We can rally around those and work with our partners in the federal government to accelerate developing  these carbon management methods without compromising livelihoods.”


Governor Gordon has been critical of federal agency regulations failing to give states and utility companies time and adequate incentives to develop cost-effective CO2 capture technologies. 


 Recommendations in the WGA report of particular interest to Wyoming citizens include:


  • Federal policies to limit CO2 emissions should be tailored to state needs, and promote, not impede, the development and deployment of CO2 capture technologies. Federal regulations should seek to expand cost-effective deployment of CO2 capture at power plants and other industrial sources.
  • Congress should amend Section 45Q of the U.S. Tax Code to provide credit based on the amount of CO2 removed, regardless of whether it is stored or utilized.
  • The U.S. Department of Agriculture should develop innovative carbon finance mechanisms to provide upfront capital to landowners seeking to implement [natural sequestration] projects. 
  • The EPA should establish clear and consistent guidelines to states for obtaining primacy and should increase agency capacity to review state primacy applications in a more timely manner.  EPA should include aquifer exemptions for Class VI wells. 

Governor Gordon  has also promoted the important role private landowners have in providing natural CO2 sequestration through management of grazing and forest lands.


A complete copy of the report can be found on WGA’s website.

Decarbonizing is coming, and soon, and probably not in an "all options" manner that Governor Gordon urges. The only question is whether there will be a bit of a hiatus due to a second Trump presidency or not.  But it is coming.

In spite of that, there will be howls of derision from Wyoming's far right on this, which will refuse to be proactive and insist the past can be returned.

Related to this, and acknowledging that electric vehicles are coming, a draft bill for the 2025 legislature proposes to tax electric vehicle charging.  While that sounds punitive, the thought it that it will make up for lost gasoline taxes used for roads.  The introductory part of that bill:


In other news which will impact a Wyoming industry that isn't going a way, new electronic ear tags are coming to the cattle industry:

Press Release

Contact: 
APHISpress@usda.gov

 

Requires electronic ID for Certain Cattle and Bison Moving Interstate

WASHINGTON, April 26, 2024 – Today, by amending and strengthening its animal disease traceability regulations for certain cattle and bison, the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is putting in place the technology, tools, and processes to help quickly pinpoint and respond to costly foreign animal diseases.

“Rapid traceability in a disease outbreak will not only limit how long farms are quarantined, keep more animals from getting sick, and help ranchers and farmers get back to selling their products more quickly – but will help keep our markets open,” said Dr. Michael Watson, APHIS Administrator.  

One of the most significant benefits of the rule for farmers and ranchers will be the enhanced ability of the United States to limit impacts of animal disease outbreaks to certain regions, which is the key to maintaining our foreign markets. By being able to readily prove disease-free status in non-affected regions of the United States, we will be able to request foreign trading partners recognize disease-free regions or zones instead of cutting off trade for the entire country. Traceability of animals is necessary to establish these disease-free zones and facilitate reestablishment of foreign and domestic market access with minimum delay in the wake of an animal disease event. 

This rule is the culmination of goals established by USDA to increase traceability, one of the best protections against disease outbreaks, and enhances a rule finalized in 2013 for the official identification of livestock and documentation for certain interstate movements of livestock.

USDA is committed to implementing a modern animal disease traceability system that tracks animals from birth to slaughter using affordable technology that allows for quick tracing of sick and exposed animals to stop disease spread. USDA will continue to provide tags to producers free of charge to jumpstart efforts to enable the fastest possible response to a foreign animal disease. For information on how to obtain these free tags, please see APHIS’ Animal Disease Traceability webpage.

The final rule applies to all sexually intact cattle and bison 18 months of age or older, all dairy cattle, cattle and bison of any age used for rodeo or recreation events, and cattle or bison of any age used for shows or exhibitions.

The rule requires official eartags to be visually and electronically readable for official use for interstate movement of certain cattle and bison, and revises and clarifies certain record requirements related to cattle.

A copy of this rule may be viewed today, and the rule will be published in the Federal Register in the coming weeks. This rule will be effective 180 days after publication in the Federal Register. 

To learn more about animal disease traceability and how APHIS responds to animal disease outbreaks, visit www.aphis.usda.gov.

#

USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. In the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA is transforming America’s food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, ensuring access to healthy and nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to equity across the Department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America. To learn more, visit www.usda.gov.

Frequently Asked Questions: Animal Disease Traceability Rule 

USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. In the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA is transforming America’s food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, fairer markets for all producers, ensuring access to safe, healthy and nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to equity across the Department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America. To learn more, visit www.usda.gov.

June 20, 2024

June 26, 2024

Wyoming is setting aside $800,000 from the coal litigation funds to use to fight pollution rules.


The Governor announced the state had hired Virginia firm Consovoy McCarthy for this effort, which is an insult to the state's legal community.

June 29, 2024

The Delta Blues*

In local and semi local news:

1.  Last Saturday evening, a Delta Airlines 757 bound from Atlanta to Salt Lake City lost cabin pressure and had to land at the Natrona County International Airport.

2.  On June 17the Casper/Natrona County International Airport Board of Directors notified the Fly Casper Alliance (FCA) that it voted to withdraw support for the minimum revenue guarantee which has kept SkyWest flying as the Delta Connection to Salt Lake.  This will almost surely end commercial air service from Casper to SLC.

Footnotes

* The reference is to the type of blues associated with the Missippii Delta.

And then there's this:

Governor Gordon Applauds U.S. Supreme Court Ruling on Chevron

CHEYENNE, Wyo. –  Governor Mark Gordon responded to the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of the Chevron doctrine today, calling the decision a victory for common-sense regulatory reform. The Governor’s statement follows:

“For years, unelected bureaucrats running federal agencies in Washington D.C. have used “deference” as an excuse to target certain industries based on politics. Wyoming has experienced that firsthand,” Governor Gordon said. “Limiting their power to overreach is cause for celebration, and this ruling begins that process.

The court has essentially removed the fox from the hen house. This decision ensures that agencies can no longer unilaterally expand their authority beyond the letter of the law. It rejects the strategy of attacking a state’s industries through rules and regulations like those advanced by the Biden Administration.”

Attorney General Bridget Hill filed an amicus brief on the Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo case on behalf of the State of Wyoming in July of 2023. In that filing, it was noted that the number of Federal regulations are at an all-time high and the rules published by Federal agencies have outpaced the laws Congress enacted at a rate of 26-to-1.

-END-

This will have enormous implications, but nobody really knows what they will be.

July 6, 2024

Wyoming Outdoor Council Plays Shenanigans With State-Run Oil And Gas Auction

July 16, 2024

The price of oil fell due to predictions that Chinese demand has fallen.

The stock market has been dramatically climbing in expectation that Donald Trump will win the 2024 election.

July 19, 2024

The IMF warns the US should raise taxes.

This is patently obvious from an economic standpoint.

July 20, 2024

A computer bug caused massive computer failures globally.

Modelo Especial has overtaken Bud Light as the number one beer in the United States.

July 21, 2024

Nuclear technology company BWX is evaluating locations in Wyoming for commercial nuclear fuel production.

July 27, 2024

The world's largest soda ash company is planning a major expansion of operations in southwest Wyoming.

August 3, 2024

Kum & Go's in Wyoming are becoming Maverik's.

Maverik already has a presence here. The convenience store in their Mill's location sells Cinnabon's. . . 

Related to this Big D's seem to be springing up in Natrona County.

August 4, 2024

Rocky Mountain Power filed a request to increase rates in order to underwrite new infrastructure and cover the rising costs insurance premiums relating to wildfire risk.

Another reminder of something we discussed yesterday:

Intellectual disconnect. With everything on fire, will people wake up?

August 6, 2024

US stocks crashed yesterday, something that would matter to me if I was every going to retire, which seems unlikely.

The price of oil also dropped.

All this due to recession fears.

All this was due to massive overreaction to job reports.

August 12, 2024

A Federal grant will be used to provide high speed internet to the parts of Wyoming lacking it.

August 14, 2024

Natrona County Passenger Increase

Nearly 30% more passengers flew out of Casper/Natrona County International Airport in July than did a year ago, airport officials reported Monday.

Casper Star Tribune, August 14, 2024.

August 15, 2024

Inflation has hit a three year low.

From the Casper Star Tribune:

Total employment in Wyoming grew by a scant 1.3% from first quarter 2023 to first quarter 2024, but total payroll grew by 4.1% over the year, the Research and Planning section of the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services reported Friday. Average weekly wage in the state grew by 2.8%.

August 16, 2024

California will ban the sale of new gasoline powered vehicles by 2035.

Starting in 2026, 35% of new vehicles sold in California will be required to be hybrids or fully electric.

August 18, 2024

A development we'll see more and more of.

Colorado-Based Tri-State Ditching Coal Power Alienates Its 8 Wyoming Co-ops

Americans are moving away for coal generation, and no amount of Wyomingites denying its occuring, or trying to prevent it, is going to stop that.

August 23, 2024


The Canadian government has forced the Canadian Pacific Kansas City and Canadian National railroads into arbitration with their unions, so rail traffic in Canada will resume shortly.

After no agreement was reached, the railroads had locked their workers out yesterday.

September 5, 2024

Crude oil hit a nine month low.

The Japanese government is encouraging employers to adopt a four day work week to deal with labor shortages.

September 6, 2024

Crude oil are now at a fourteen month low.

September 7, 2024