Blog Mirror: Collapsed

Well worth reading:

Collapsed

You can see my reply there as well, which I've set out again here:

"Last year it would have not been a problem but this year I'm not in great shape due to family issues"

Me too, except it's my own health, starting with a surgery in October 2022, and another in August. Haven't really recovered, although I should have.

Maybe you never really do.

Anyhow, was walking out of the high country at a pretty good clip as a rainstorm came rolling in. Lost my footing on a rock, fell, rolled over, and cut myself pretty bad. Just me and the dog. No cell reception, and I've given up carrying my gmrs radio as there's nobody to call if I'm hunting alone.

Rolled over, wasn't damaged and hiked out bleeding. It hasn't been a great year.

Glad you were okay.

I don't mean to be hijacking somebody else's blog, but since October 2022 I haven't been myself.  I wrote previously on my surgery followed by a second surgery.  Since the first surgery, my digestive track hasn't recovered, and it's clear that it's not going to.  I'm sick every morning.  Not some mornings, every morning, save, oddly enough, for a few days I spent at trial where I couldn't afford to be.*  Most days I'm better off not eating any breakfast anymore, as it's just going to make me sick.  I was already developing an intolerance to milk, but now it's through the roof.  I can't even eat cereal with a little milk.  The stuff I'm used to eating in the morning, which was always a pretty light meal, is a no-go completely now.

And the second surgery resulted in a medication that I'm pretty sure isn't adjusted right, right now.  Everyone has told me how thyroid medication is supposed to make you feel great and give you energy. Well, that isn't working for me.  Researching it, there are a tiny minority of people who actually never feel good following a thyroid surgery and for whom the medications don't work to address that.  Given that almost no medication ever works well for me, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was me.  Hindsight is 20/20, but I really wish I'd foregone that surgery now and have borne the risk of cancer instead.  At age 60, and from a short-lived group, the risk probably was worth it.**

Worst of all, frankly, being sick all the time impacts your attitude in ways you can't really appreciate until it's obvious.  I've been there recently. Short-tempered and not having a good long term outlook.  At work the other day I blew up on two colleagues who have been running a really irritating religious debate for years, in the hallway, for what they conceive to be the entertainment of the unwilling listeners.  Our poor Mexican runner has to listen to this constantly, and I finally had enough and just exploded on them.  The point isn't that their juvenile behavior was okay, but that my reaction was so stout.***I shouldn't have done that, and that's just a minor example.

I usually look longingly forward to hunting season, but this year I've just not been too motivated after a certain point. Being tired has a lot to do with that.   And when you are like that, you are a pain to those around you, at least to some extent.  Some can see and appreciate that, others not so much.  It's hard to appreciate it yourself until something forces you to.  I looked forward to all summer to the season, and enjoyed deer hunting, but usually by now I've done a pile of duck hunting.  I've gone this year. . .twice. Every Saturday, the dog looks at me with confusion.  The funny thing is that all week long I still look forward to getting out, but when the weekend comes, I go down to work like old lawyers do, and when Sunday comes, well I haven't gone to Mass the night prior, so I get a late start doing whatever I'm going to do.

As noted above, not only am I tired, but I'm not in shape the way I usually am.  I've fallen so rarely out in the sticks that as a short person, I'm one of those people who were sort of goat like, climbing in terrain where hunters and fishermen wouldn't normally go and not worrying about it even though it was patently dangerous.  As a National Guardsmen, I recall once somebody remarking how me and another NCO were mysteriously able to negotiate difficult terrain at night, silently.  We were both avid hunters.  To take a fall, and a pretty bad one, on terrain that I'd been over a million times was a shock.

I was actually quite lucky at the time.  I was all alone, taking a path that I normally would not have, although as noted I've been on it many times before. There was a thunderstorm coming in.  I was carrying a loaded shotgun.  I fell, and, recalling the plf ***I learned so many years ago, rolled out of it, but not before I'd scrapped myself up pretty badly.  I wasn't sure at first if I'd broken anything.  I had my cell phone, as noted, but no reception, so I couldn't have called for help if I wanted to.  I usually carry a handheld GMRS radio, but I've quit recently as if I'm alone, who am I going to radio to?

Hors de combat, after it started to heal.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

I can recall my father getting like this when he was almost the exact same age I am now.  He died two years later.  He seemed pretty old at the time, so I wasn't hugely surprised.  I guess it's like the Hendrix song, "You may wake up in the morning, just to find that you are dead".

Of course, he was gravely ill for months prior to that.  In retrospect, however, it all started for him with a colonoscopy, the same way that this has started for me.  I recall him remarking as he was in the hospital on how all of his mother's ailments were now visiting him.  She died, if I recall correctly, at 65.

In my mind, I always imagined that at some point after I had reached retirement age, which I have not yet, I'd retire to a life of full time outdoorsman.  Not too many people do that.  There may be a reason for that. Some of us are luckier as we age than others.

Oh well, nature has a way of waking you up and reminding you that some things need to be done.  Getting sick? Quite doing what you are doing, refocus, and soldier on.  Get a grip, reform, reform, and keep on keeping on, but mindful of errors and omissions.

Footnotes

*I've long noticed for some reason a person's system will suppress symptoms of almost any illness when you absolutely have to keep on, keeping on. Usually things come back with a vengeance, or at least fatigue, when the crisis has passed.

**This is not intended to be advice for anyone else, I'd note.

***Re the argument, the entire facility had grown extremely tired of it and the shutting them up was welcomed, save by one of the arguers, who may be permanently mad at me.  Showing my presently poor mental outlook, I don't care.  I'm tired of hearing minority religions insulted when some of the employees belong to them, and I'm tired of having my own faith routinely insulted, which I've endured now for decades.  And while I'm a serious if imperfect orthodox Catholic, I'm also tired of one of these individuals, who isn't that good at arguing, turning to religious topics no matter what is being discussed, to include my assistant simply taking her shoes off in her office the other day, which would not normally lead to a Biblical discussion, but of course did.

I've also had it with somebody thinking that mocking the Spanish language is funny in front of somebody who's an immigrant.

***Parachute Landing Fall.  I learned this, oddly enough, while I was a CAP cadet.

How not to be helpful.

I hesitate to post this, and probably shouldn't.  I'm not a counselor of anything other than "the law" and I always think lawyers who use that term in their letterheads are being pretentious.  Having said that, the only thing lawyers really do is deal with people's problems, sometimes by creating problems for other people, so we do know something about it.

I've been in litigation for decades, and I think what that's taught me is that fighting sucks.  People who like to fight, including lawyers who like that, also suck.  Most people, including most lawyers, don't fit in that category, however.

Anyhow, with that caveat, I'm going to just put out some observational comments on how not to help people, and by that I mean people who are seeking our help as they have a close relationship.  Some people deserve help, some don't, and a lot deserve a lot better help than that they get.

Before I get into that, however, the first thing I'd note is that if you've sought help from a whole bunch of people, and they all give you the same advice, maybe you are the problem.  I've seen people who are flat out wrong with a legal problem ask a whole series of professionals, and then go down to their dog and cat, and get the same advance and be upset. They don't want real help, they want verification that their wacky view or bad plan is right.  Sometimes they want verification for going after somebody they shouldn't.

Don't be that person.

Well, in offering advice, here goes.

1.  Ridden like a rented mule.

Years ago, I had a friend who started off in the same line of work I did, but who temperamentally wasn't very suited for it.  He'd married right out of law school, and he and his wife had a couple of children pretty quickly.

At some point, he began to burn out pretty badly.  It was obvious.  But his wife had achieved a status that she'd always hoped for in the process.  Indeed, frankly, we'd been friend with both of them when they started out, but because he became quite financially successful, briefly, she reached the point of viewing us as being of inferior status and quit associating with us.  He didn't. 

Anyhow, you could see what was coming.  He was having trouble, then a close friend of his died and it was life altering.  He wanted out.  Financially, he started declining.

I don't know what the conversations between the two of them were, but I have a suspicion.  It was probably "you'll get over it" which amounted to "get back to work and stop complaining".

Well, ultimately he took up going to the gym a lot, she took up eating a lot, he met a woman at the gym. . . fill in blanks here.  The couple split.

Now, I’m a Catholic and I don't advocate for divorce, and I'm not justifying what happened here, but the "shut up and plow on" response is really common from spouse to spouse.  I've seen it from female to male and male to female.  Men work themselves to deaths as their wives can't conceive of them doing anything else or simply won't allow them to.

Death may be the mildest of results here, actually.  The failing party gets the blame, but often they were pushed into it.  If somebody is saying "I can't go on", they probably really can't go on, and they need the other person's help.

Indeed, to add to this, I've witnessed the odd phenomenon of a spouse who was there for all of her friends and her siblings, but nearly totally unsympathetic to her husband under the situation described above, and not even all that sympathetic to at least one of her children's problems.  There as well, the husband was sending out pretty clear signals that he was worn out beyond repair.  He started to get sick, and the wife didn't even really react much to that.  Eventually he had a bad fatigue related accident.  The "I told you I needed help" wasn't well received.

2. Looking for a solution.

Closely related to this is this one, and this is a male/female thing.

More particularly, this is a male/female couple thing.

Something about the psychological makeup of women causes them to present problems to their spouses, boyfriends, and close friends that they don't want solved.  This is so common that there are some well known jokes about it.  Men don't work this way, usually.  Actually women don't either, with men they know in a professional sense, even if they become friends with them, but then often coworker problem discussions are also of the "venting" nature.

If a man just wants to vent about a problem, but not have it solved, he'll just relate the problem to a stranger or somebody he barely knows, hence the classic stories about bartenders.  When he tells a friend, however, or a spouse, he's looking for a solution.

Probably due to simple familiarity, the longer a couple has been together, the more likely a real solution is just going to be brushed off.  

I've read lots of stories in legal journals about successful lawyers who entered some sort of deep crisis and then something horrible happened.  Often a spouse is interviewed and gives a "there were no signs" teary comment.

Maybe, but I'll bet more often than not there were.  Probably Joe Big Law had gone to his wife repeatedly with "look, honey, I need to do something here as I can't keep on like this", and the reply was "oh, you'll feel better. . . " at best.  He didn't.  Wife is distraught.

Well, she wasn't much help, quite often.

Offering no solution isn't being helpful. Flat out stating there's no solution definitely isn't helpful.

This also applies, however, to a lot of professional colleague advice.

A running story in the television series M*A*S*H was that, at the end of the day, the object of a field hospital was to get you patched up, and back into combat.  That's pretty much the way professional assistance programs work as well. They're going to address your problems and get you back into the game.

Maybe the game is the problem.

3.  It's all about me.

I've seen this repeatedly.

Somebody has a real problem, they go to their spouse or close friend, and that person quickly turns it into a discussion about their own, probably trivial problem.  It works like this.  "Honey, I've been shot, and I'm bleeding out", to which is replied, "Oh I know just what that's like, I stubbed my toe on a piece of furniture at work the other day, why I had told the janitor a thousand times that that needed to be moved, and I hate that furniture, it's Ikea and ".

No help at all.

I've actually had couples come with a legal problem where I have to shut one of them up as that person won't let the other talk about the problem.  "The semi tractor exploded and. . . . " followed by sudden interruption and; "Bob is always so dramatic, it wasn't a big explosion, why just the other day I was at Walmart looking at the low, low prices and Mrs. Sepansky cut in front of me at the notion's isle, well I said to her. . . "

4.  Lacking empathy

Most people are at least somewhat empathetic to others, but not all.  Some simply lack it entirely.

There's been some studies that suggest this is genetic, but I somewhat doubt that.  If it fully were, the genetic driver would be towards empathy.  Indeed, an opposite speculation on this is that the world became more empathetic with the spread of Christianity, as Christians survived crises because of their empathy towards others, and others empathy towards them.

My guess is that this is a more developmental thing. Something's gone wrong.  And I suspect that lacking empathy is something stepped into.  Otherwise, quite frankly, the anti empathy genes would be weeded out, as people who lack empathy are hard to be around, while those who show it are sought out.

None of which takes away from the fact that some people just lack empathy.

In the excellent podcast Catholic Stuff You Should Know Fr. Michael O'Loughlin once observed that he'd remarked to a friend that he had his spouse to go to for sympathy. The friend laughed.  He couldn't go to his spouse for sympathy.  I suspect that's a lot more common than people suspect, and has a lot to do with the first item noted here.  It's not so much that familiarity breeds contempt as the people have assumed certain roles at some time, and there's a lack of sympathy for not fully measuring up to them.

An aspect of this, I'd note, is that some people are so lacking in empathy towards somebody seeking help from them that the asker just stops.  Indeed, the person lacking empathy not only lacks it, but is resentful about being asked for help. That actually punishes the person who needs the help.

That can really have a lasting negative impact.  At best, the asker just learns that asking is pointless.  But if the people are in a close relationship, that insertion of distance is corrosive.  A person asking somebody they love for help, and not receiving any, and even getting dissed for it, will struggle with disappointment at a bare minimum, and that disappointment can turn to hate.

You see that all the time with married couples who once obviously loved each other, but their love turned to hate. There's a lot of things that can cause that, but one is a person seeking help and receiving instead rejection.  The same comes up in parent child relationships.  Children seek out legitimate help, but don't get it, learning that they apparently really weren't that important in the first place.

5. The wrong help.

Some seeking help seem to get it, but the help they get isn't real.  Instead they receive validation, things akin to offering an alcoholic a drink.

This plays out widely in our modern society where some behaviors clearly recognized at one time as mental illnesses are now celebrated instead.  People are asking for help in their actions, but instead are simply being told they're okay.

It's easy to undestand this, as its easy.  Tough to give help is hard to receive help, and this tends to involve that.

6. The blender

Finally, I'd note, that a lot of these things get all blended together.

A person seeks help from the person who is supposed to be the closest person to them in the world, only to find that person has acclimated themselves to the role the help seeker occupies and doesn't want it changed.  At the same time, the person sought out is providing help to family and friends at an epic charitable level.  Back at home, however, it's "all about me".

Maybe that offers a clue to all of this.  

7.  The Wreck

8  Final thoughts.

I'll go back to what I noted at the start.  You read all the time, or hear it directly, that after something horrible happens "he showed no signs".  Often its from a close family member, probably a spouse.  A big law partner takes his own life, a busy business person drinks too much, too often, and dies young, a beloved mother falls apart, a desperate "transgendered" person ends their own life.

There were no signs.

Oh, sure there were.  People simply chose to ignore them.

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part XIV. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

 

June 5, 2023

Saudi Arabia is cutting its petroleum production by 1M barrels a day.

June 6, 2023

Ukrainian wheat prices have jumped.

June 9, 2023

Wyoming will divest itself of investments in China.

June 22, 2023

Ground was broken yesterday, after a decade and a half was expended on permitting on the Trans West Transmission project.  The event took place near Sinclair.\

June 27, 2023

Ford Motors is laying off salaried workers and engineers in order to save costs.

June 28, 2023

WYDOT approved a grant to Jackson to use Federal money to purchase EV buses.

June 29, 2023

Walgreens is closing 150 stores in the U.S.

In a tragedy, National Geographic magazine laid off its last remaining staff writers.

The magazine has been independent of the National Geographic Society since 2015, when it was sold to Fox.

Wyoming and Colorado Sign MOU Regarding Direct Air Capture

MOU outlines commitment to exploring direct air carbon dioxide capture (DAC) industry development

BOULDER, Colo.  – The State of Wyoming and State of Colorado announced today that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding direct air capture (DAC) activity and development. The bipartisan inter-state agreement will focus on the DAC industry’s potential to complement existing and emerging industries and increase jobs and economic development in both states while simultaneously reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Governors Mark Gordon and Jared Polis announced the news during the Western Governor Association meeting today in Boulder, Colorado.

Direct Air Capture is a method of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in which CO2 is removed from the air and then sequestered and stored to produce high-quality carbon removal credits or used for industrial applications, such as enhanced oil recovery or as a chemical feedstock for other products. The federal government has established several significant incentives and competitive grant opportunities to test and scale direct air capture technologies and projects. The mountain west is uniquely positioned to lead on these efforts, and this bipartisan agreement represents the first such multistate partnership in the county. 

The MOU outlines the partnership between the states through potential collaborations such as: applying for grants, identifying necessary infrastructure, defining carbon removal measurement standards, analyzing atmospheric CDR markets and their growth opportunities, identifying a process for resolving issues with cross-border CO2 sequestration, developing a commercialization pipeline for nascent technologies, and ensuring that local, tribal, and state stakeholders are empowered participants in shaping the future of this innovative technology and its significant economic opportunity. 

“Wyoming is a longtime leader in carbon management practices and policy,” said Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon. “We believe direct air capture could complement efforts for point-source carbon capture and the related infrastructure. Colorado and Wyoming each have pieces of the puzzle necessary to develop a carbon removal market and industry. Together, we have a powerful combination of assets, infrastructure, policy, markets, people, geology and mindsets that are needed to accelerate the development of the industry. This agreement focuses on working together on the most important questions related to DAC, including measurement standards that work to create more transparency in markets and benefits to communities.”

“This exciting bipartisan partnership builds upon our nation-leading work in Colorado to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2040 while adding good-paying jobs. I am proud to partner with Gov. Gordon on this innovative work that benefits both Colorado and Wyoming as we continue to find creative ideas and common-sense solutions in the fight for clean air that won’t just benefit Colorado and Wyoming, but the entire world,” said Colorado Governor Jared Polis. 

The MOU highlights the combined assets, infrastructure, policy, markets, resources and geology that make the region a strong contender for developing a direct air capture industry. Wyoming has world-class carbon capture, use and sequestration (CCUS) assets, including permanent geologic storage – in addition to existing infrastructure, manufacturing and energy workforce. Colorado has been developing a policy environment to evaluate the regulatory, economic, technological, and research opportunities in the carbon dioxide removal and direct air capture area and is home to the world’s second-largest operating DAC facility. 

This agreement builds on further regional collaboration between Wyoming and Colorado with Utah and New Mexico to develop the Western Interstates Hydrogen Hub. This existing partnership will mobilize  billions of dollars of investment in clean hydrogen infrastructure, another emerging technology to reduce pollution and continue the West’s leadership on global energy solutions.  

For more information, read the Memorandum in full.

June 30, 2023

UW is receiving a Federal grant for nuclear chemistry research.  The grant is in the amount of $300,000.

A headline:

Sriracha prices soar amid ongoing supply shortage linked to droughts

July 3, 2023

In an effort to cause prices to rise, Russia is cutting petroleum production by 500,000 bbls per day.

July 12, 2023

Inflation has fallen to 3%.  Historically, while it's perfectly possible to have even lower inflation, or deflation, that's a pretty good rate.

That we allow for government induced inflation through monetary policy is inexcusable, however.

The official aim is for 2%:

Why does the Federal Reserve aim for inflation of 2 percent over the longer run?

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) judges that inflation of 2 percent over the longer run, as measured by the annual change in the price index for personal consumption expenditures, is most consistent with the Federal Reserve’s mandate for maximum employment and price stability. When households and businesses can reasonably expect inflation to remain low and stable, they are able to make sound decisions regarding saving, borrowing, and investment, which contributes to a well-functioning economy.

For many years, inflation in the United States has run below the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent goal. It is understandable that higher prices for essential items, such as food, gasoline, and shelter, add to the burdens faced by many families, especially those struggling with lost jobs and incomes. At the same time, inflation that is too low can weaken the economy. When inflation runs well below its desired level, households and businesses will come to expect this over time, pushing expectations for inflation in the future below the Federal Reserve’s longer-run inflation goal. This can pull actual inflation even lower, resulting in a cycle of ever-lower inflation and inflation expectations.

If inflation expectations fall, interest rates would decline too. In turn, there would be less room to cut interest rates to boost employment during an economic downturn. Evidence from around the world suggests that once this problem sets in, it can be very difficult to overcome. To address this challenge, following periods when inflation has been running persistently below 2 percent, appropriate monetary policy will likely aim to achieve inflation modestly above 2 percent for some time. By seeking inflation that averages 2 percent over time, the FOMC will help to ensure longer-run inflation expectations remain well anchored at 2 percent.

1% would be better.  0 would be even better.  Very difficult to achieve.

And in actuality, with a labor demand that exceeds employment, a slight deflation, over a decade, would be nice.

July 13, 2023

A study published in Joule maintains that ending fossil fuel use will impact the net worth of only the very wealthy.

Swiss voters have voted to reach net carbon zero by 2050.

July 16, 2023

Hollywood actors and writers are on strike, something that could carry on forever as far as I'm concerned, given the overall negative affects the industry has had.

July 19, 2023

Wheat prices have jumped 8% due to Russia pulling out of the Black Sea grain shipment arrangement.

July 20, 2023

NON-ENERGY MINERALS ON PUBLIC LANDS ARE A SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTOR TO ECONOMIC ACTIVITY AND JOBS

July 22, 2023

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles lost its renewed legal battle seeking to keep Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. from selling the redesigned Roxor off-road vehicle in the US.

The lawsuit claimed the designed trespass on protected elements of the Jeep.  I don't know the details of the suit, but the Roxor is pretty clearly a Jeep externally, and more particularly the old CJ-5.

July 28, 2023

Supreme Court rules in favor of Mountain Valley Pipeline  

Or;

Supreme Court rules in favor of Mountain Valley Pipeline

Thumbs Up Emoji Costs Canadian Farmer $82,000

August 3, 2023

Sales of Bud Light have fallen 10%.

August 4, 2023

Saudi Arabia extended production cuts.  U.S. oil prices are at a nine-month-high.

August 8, 2023

Two out of three of the major credit rating entities have downgraded the US rating from AAA+ to AAA. This occured to the lunacy of current American politics and the high U.S. debt.

And, locally:

Environmental Groups Lose Appeal Of Wyoming 3,500 Gas Well Project at Jonah Field

Last prior edition:

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part XIII. The Economic Doomsday Clock

"We have plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean."

 So stated President Joe Biden.

I'll pick this up elsewhere, but first let me note that I live in fear of Donald Trump becoming President again.  

But the insanity of nominating the elderly to high posts in office has got to stop.  Biden actually stated this, and listening to him is listening to the ramblings of somebody for whom senility is setting in.

Is this really the choice the two major parties intend to leave us with?  A race between an increasingly senile octogenarian and a malevolent septuagenarian?

Please, primary voters, do not do this to the country.

Newsprint finis. The Casper Star Tribune.

With a history dating to 1891 with the weekly Natrona Tribune, published by the Republican Publishing Co., but with a name, reflecting mergers and a somewhat complicated history, dating to 1961, the Casper Star Tribune has ceased printing a Sunday edition.

Volume VII of the Natrona Tribune, the first year of its publication.

Today's edition was the last print Sunday tribune.

The Trib has tried to put a happy face on it, but it's not a happy story.  Clearly the paper is in economic trouble and part of that is online competitors, of which Wyoming has at least three substantial ones at the present time.  It already quit issuing print papers on Mondays, and now it will only issue two print papers per week, and mail them to subscribers from Scotsbluff.

Mail?

Yeah.  That's useful.  Having said that, the two print copies we got per week didn't arrive super quickly.  I'd usually read the electronic edition before that.

A sad end to an era nonetheless.

I prefer the print edition.  Maybe that's just me, but I like to be able to thumb through the paper, and frankly I pick up more content reading it that way.

Well, no more.  I'm not going to continue having a print subscription for Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which is now the option, had get them a week later when the mail gets here for them.

Two Observations

 1.  The same political party that found that breaking into an opponents' headquarters for political advantage was beyond the pale, and impeachable, now holds, to a large degree, that prosecuting a former President is an act of political terrorism.

Richard Nixon must be spinning in his grave.

History will find the GOP, and in particular those candidates who cannot bring themselves to condemn Trump for his actions, cowardly and trace this moment as the one at which the demise of the GOP became fixed.

2.  Ukraine is going to lose a lot of armor in its offensive.

Everyone loses a lot of armor in armored offensives.  That, in and of itself, doesn't mean they're fighting poorly or that the armor is bad.

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part XII. Holding back the tide.

February 14, 2023

Freshman Congressman Harriet Hageman introduced the companion bill to a doomed bill introduced in the Senate by Cynthia Lummis, which provides:

117th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 543

To prohibit the President from issuing moratoria on leasing and permitting energy and minerals on certain Federal land, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

January 28, 2021

Ms. Herrell (for herself, Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Scalise, Mr. Westerman, Mr. Gosar, Mr. Newhouse, Mr. Moore of Utah, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Young, Mr. Owens, Mr. McKinley, Mr. Sessions, Mr. Brady, Mr. Stauber, Mr. Stewart, Mr. Tiffany, Mr. LaMalfa, Mr. Curtis, Mr. Lamborn, Mr. McClintock, Mr. Roy, Mr. Smith of Nebraska, Mr. Reschenthaler, Mr. Calvert, Mrs. Bice of Oklahoma, Mr. Baird, Mr. Mooney, Mr. Rosendale, Mr. Hern, Mrs. Boebert, and Mr. Amodei) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committee on Agriculture, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

A BILL

To prohibit the President from issuing moratoria on leasing and permitting energy and minerals on certain Federal land, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Protecting Our Wealth of Energy Resources Act” or the “POWER Act”.

SEC. 2. PROHIBITION ON MORATORIA OF NEW ENERGY LEASES ON CERTAIN FEDERAL LAND AND ON WITHDRAWAL OF FEDERAL LAND FROM ENERGY DEVELOPMENT.

(a) Definitions.—In this section:

(1) CRITICAL MINERAL.—The term “critical mineral” means any mineral included on the list of critical minerals published in the notice of the Secretary of the Interior entitled “Final List of Critical Minerals 2018” (83 Fed. Reg. 23295 (May 18, 2018)).

(2) FEDERAL LAND.—

(A) IN GENERAL.—The term “Federal land” means—

(i) National Forest System land;

(ii) public lands (as defined in section 103 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1702));

(iii) the outer Continental Shelf (as defined in section 2 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. 1331)); and

(iv) land managed by the Secretary of Energy.

(B) INCLUSION.—The term “Federal land” includes land described in clauses (i) through (iv) of subparagraph (A) for which the rights to the surface estate or subsurface estate are owned by a non-Federal entity.

(3) PRESIDENT.—The term “President” means the President or any designee, including—

(A) the Secretary of Agriculture;

(B) the Secretary of Energy; and

(C) the Secretary of the Interior.

(b) Prohibitions.—

(1) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the President shall not carry out any action that would prohibit or substantially delay the issuance of any of the following on Federal land, unless such an action has been authorized by an Act of Congress:

(A) New oil and gas leases, drill permits, approvals, or authorizations.

(B) New coal leases, permits, approvals, or authorizations.

(C) New hard rock leases, permits, approvals, or authorizations.

(D) New critical minerals leases, permits, approvals, or authorizations.

(2) PROHIBITION ON WITHDRAWAL.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the President shall not withdraw any Federal land from forms of entry, appropriation, or disposal under the public land laws, location, entry, and patent under the mining laws, or disposition under laws pertaining to mineral and geothermal leasing or mineral materials unless the withdrawal has been authorized by an Act of Congress.

1. Can't pass the Senate

2.  Would be vetoed if it actually passed both houses, when there's certainly not enough votes to override a veto.

So why do these things?

February 20, 2023

Golden moves on path to all-electric in new buildings: To meet its #climate goals, this #Colorado city of 20,000 needs to crimp #methane combustion. It could require all-electric in new buildings by January 2024

February 23, 2023

SNAP, the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, ends this month.

NPR is laying off 10% of its workforce.

March 3, 2023

A Gold and Copper mine will open in Laramie County in 2025.

The United States Post Office is buying 9,250 electric vans from Ford.

March 13, 2023

Silicon Valley Bank collapsed Friday after a comment by a major investment broker regarding it.  The Federal Government is not going to "bail out" the bank, which has accounts by many wealthy investors.

President Biden is proceeding to authorize the Willow drilling project inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, despite protests over the proposed action.

March 28, 2023

Renewables produced more energy than coal last year.

Coal checked in at 20%, down from 50% in 2007, and it's declining.

This is no surprise here, we've noted the timeline of coal long ago:

Coal: Understanding the time line of an industry

April 2, 2023

It's the end of coal in the state.

Rocky Mountain Power has announced that nine of its eleven power plants will be using gas, rather than coal, by 2030.

And, once again:

Coal: Understanding the time line of an industry

As is to emphasize it, one of the remaining coal-fired plants will be Glenrock's Dave Johnson, where a third wind generating facility is going in.

April 3, 2023

Saudi Arabia and Dubai, and other OPEC countries, are cutting back oil production through the balance of the year.

April 13, 2023

The Biden Administration's proposed emissions standards will require 2/3s of all automobiles to be electric by 2032.

April 25, 2023

Fly Casper Alliance lobbies for city subsidy.

A new Natrona County Advocacy Group, Fly Casper Alliance, is seeking $50,000 from the City of Casper to help secure the present Delta (Sky West) flight to Salt Lake City.  The flight already receives subsidies from Natrona County, but this one time payment is hoped to help continue to secure the flight.

Related thread:

Delta receives a subsidty to continue serving the Natrona County International Airport

May 10, 2023

The big economic news right now, of course, is that the country is racing towards its debt limit, at which point it will default on its debts.

The whole idea of a debt limit was to put a cap on Congress' ability to borrow too much money. The problem is it didn't work out that way.  Sort of like a spending limit on a credit card, it just caps off the debt, but the problem is, unlike a credit card, when you go to present it to the person you are buying something from, your credit isn't declined.  You get the thing anyway, and then later just don't have the ability to pay for it.

So it works instead, like buying a house, for example, or a car, you couldn't afford.

In order to really have teeth, there'd have to be a third body, like the CBO, treasury, or something, that would just nullify bills authorizing spending over the limit.  Or, rather, a court would have to declare, before things were spent, that there was a freeze on spending as Congress didn't have the statutory authority to make the spending.  

A balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, frankly, would work significantly better.

It does serve to cause the spending entities to have to get together, but they don't do it honestly.  Basically what we have going on is something akin to a couple at a banquet who have overspent arguing whether they should take the Bud Light off the table, while they're leaving the Dom Pérignon on.  Or, rather, it's like a husband that has a job as Mini Mart clerks, but the education of PhDs, arguing about racking up bills rather than going out and getting a better paying job.

If we don't get this fixed by June 1, the country is going into a massive economic crisis.

To add to that grim situation, the negotiations are in the hands of 1) one politician who is so old that he can recall when he went to U.S. Grant's kindergarten recitals, and 2) one politician who is so beholding to Trumpist "Club For Growth" Kool-Aid drinkers that he stinks up a room before he gets there.

If you worked at a company run this way, you'd look for a new job.  If you lived in a family run this way, you'd be looking for your own apartment.

This also serves, we might note, to recall the Jeffersonian warnings about democracy (and yes, we are a democracy, don't give me that "but we're a republic" crap, which is just what that line is, crap).  Jefferson warned that once the country ceased to be agrarian, the government would fail, as at that point it gave rise to feeding the mob.

The history of modern democracies has so far demonstrated that fear to be wrong, but it has also taken real crises in order to address largess.  The German democracy, for instance, beat up by the hyperinflation of Weimar era and the brutality of World War Two keeps a tight reign on its finances. The Japanese democracy, hit hard by the Japanese decline of the 1970s, does the same.

So far, the American democracy has shown no such tendency.  Congress won't address entitlements, which it must, won't address gigantic defense spending, which it must, and won't address raising taxes, which it must.

In that context, again, it's like a couple employed as Mini Mart clerks, both with PhD's, who are standing outside their apartment yelling each at each other about whether to upgrade the stereo on the Tesla they can't afford.

May 13, 2023

Mining sector jobs grew more than any other sector of Wyoming's economy last year, by 9.1%. This in spite of dire warnings by, well, folks like me.

UW's employees will be receiving a pay raise.

Ford Motors will no longer put AM radio in its vehicles.  Any of them.  Many other manufacturers are pulling theirs from electric vehicles.

May 15, 2023

Trump apparently said in his Town Hall on CNN that unless the Administration agreed to major cuts, the Republicans should take the country into debt default, a totally wreckless position that would destroy the savings of his constituency. 

Trump himself was responsible for major additions to the deficit.

Biden and the Republicans are set to meet again on Tuesday. Perhaps this slow motion process is part of his strategy, but its yet another example of government that is as slow as molasses.

May 16, 2023

The local paper is eliminating an edition, going to three print editions per week only and wiping out personal home delivery in favor of mail.

May 21, 2023

Nothing is being done about the debt ceiling while President Biden is at the G7. He gets back today.

If the US ends up with Trump again, this sort of behavior will be a lot of the reason why.

Footnotes:

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part XI. The Waiting for a Train Edition

The death throws of the newspapers.

Back when I was in high school, I briefly toyed with the idea of becoming a journalist.

I was never very serious about it, it was only one of the possibilities I was considering.  In junior high and my first year or so of high school, I was fairly certain that I'd pursue a career as an Army officer, but already by that time that desire was wearing off. I liked writing and still do, so it seemed like a possibility.  I also liked photography, and still do, and it seemed like a career where you could combine both, although in that era press photographers were usually just that, photographers.  

I took my high school's journalism class as a result and was on the school newspaper.  Doing that, I shot hundreds of photographs of our high school athletes, as well as some really interesting events.  I did learn how to write in the journalist's style, which involves summarizing the story in the first paragraph figuring that some people will read no more than that, summarizing it again in the last paragraph, and filling in the story in between.  Good news stories still read that way, although I've noticed in recent years that is observed less and less.

During that year or so I had the occasion to tour the local paper, and the class had a senior, a young woman, who actually already worked there as a reporter.

That paper was no small affair.  The paper was a regional one, as well as the city paper, and it's building just off of downtown, still there was very large.  That large structure, with a massive open news floor and a big printing room, was at least the fourth locality it had occupied, outgrowing the prior three.  It would outgrow that one was well and build an absolutely massive structure just outside of town.

Last year, it sold it.

Now, the paper is headquartered in what was once a bar/restaurant downtown.  Much, much smaller.  It doesn't have presses anymore, it prints the paper in another state.  Far from having a large staff of reporters with dedicated beats, it's down to one or two writers who are always "cubs", just starting out.  It doesn't print newspapers at all on two days a week, right now, but relies on an electronic edition that mimics the appearance of a newspaper on your computer.

You can't pick up and thumb through a pdf.

This past week, it announced that it was going to quit printing a Sunday edition and quit physical home delivery for the three issues per week it will still print. Those will be mailed from the printing location in another state.

It's dying.

It's not surprising really, but it is sad.

At one time, it was a real force to be reckoned with, and people frankly feared it.  Everyone subscribed to it.  I know one family that sued it for liable due to what they regarded as inaccurate reporting on them.

Newspapers reformed themselves after the introduction of radio.  That's something that tends not to be very well known about them.  Before radio, many newspapers tended to be some species of scandal rag and they were usually heavily partisan in their reporting.  You can think of them, basically, the way people think of Fox News today.  As radio cut into their readership, papers consolidated and adopted a new ethic that they reported objectively.

They frankly never really achieved full objectivity, as that may not be possible.  But they did strive for it.  The introduction of television reinforced this.  Newspapers became the place where you could, hopefully, get complete objective news and, hopefully, in depth news on various topics.  Even smaller newspapers had dedicated reporters per topic, larger ones very much so.  The local paper had local reporters that reported per topic assignment.  A big paper, like the Rocky Mountain News, had very specified reporters.  The Rocky Mountain News, for instance, had a religion reporter whose beat was just that topic.  A surprising number of local papers sent reporters to South Vietnam during the Vietnam War just to report on the war.

That's all long past.  For quite some time, reporters have become generalists by default, and as a rule, they can't be expected to have an in-depth understanding of any one topic. For that reason, they are frequently inaccurate, even on a national level.  Just today, for example, I read a national story which repeatedly referred to Communion Hosts as "wafers". That's not the right term.  Reporters on crime blindly accept the "mass shooting" and "high powered rifle" lines without having any idea what they mean.  Print reporters repeat in some instances, depending upon individual reporters, hearsay as fact, in part because they likely don't have the time to really investigate everything personally. 

Because we now get green reporters, the obvious fact that the local paper is dying is all the sadder.  At one time green reporters could at least hope to move up the ranks in their local papers, maybe becoming editors or columnists if they stayed there, or they could move on, as they often did, to larger papers.  They still move on, but papers everywhere are dying.  Ironically, the only papers that still do fairly well are the genuine small town papers in small towns. That's good, but that can't be a career boosting job for those who enter it.  

And with the death of the paper the objectivity that they brought in, back in their golden era, which I'd place from the 1930s through 1990 or so, is dying with them.  People are going to electronic news, which so far hasn't shown that same dedication, although recently some online start-ups actually do.  Television news has become hopelessly shallow, fully dedicated to the "if it bleeds it leads" type of thinking, or fully partisan, telling people what they want to hear.  Really good reporting, and not all of it was really good, was pretty informative, which raised the level of the national intellect.  People might have hated reporters, and they often did, but they read what was being reported about Richard Nixon and Watergate or what was revealed in the Pentagon Papers and had a better understanding of it in spite of themselves.  That helped result in Republicans themselves operating to bring Richard Nixon down and society at large bringing an end to the Vietnam War.

Now, in contrast, we have electronic propaganda organs on the net that feed people exactly what they want to hear, and that often is the same thing that comes out of the back end of a cow.

Not overnight, of course. This has been going on for decades, and indeed in some ways it started with the first radio broadcasts.  But radio was easier to adjust to.  The internet, not so much.

The death of a career, an institution, and unfortunately, also our wider understanding.

Sic transit.

Go ahead, living on pie and whiskey won't hurt you. . . .

Sen. John Barrasso@SenJohnBarrasso

Democrats’ runaway spending continues to fuel today’s high prices. 

@POTUS & Democrats refuse to cut spending even though the nation has blown past its limit. Families are worn out by Washington Democrats’ nonstop spending & worried about making ends meet.

barrasso.senate.gov

Barrasso: Democrats Refuse to Cut Spending Even Though the Nation Has Blown Past Its Limit

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, today issued the following statement after the April 2023 Consumer Price Index (CPI) revealed...

10:23 AM · May 10, 2023

A few observations. 

1.  The U.S. didn't have a budget deficit in 1835.

1835. That's it.

It had built up debt to pay down, but it didn't have a budget deficit, for that one year only.

This means "the Democrats did it" is devoid of historical accuracy.

2.  The recent massive public debt really began to ramp up during Gulf War II, which we fought on borrowed money.

The President who started that was a Republican. The President who finished it was a Democrat.

So again, "the Democrats did it" is, well, not really true.

3. The huge recent ramp up started during Donald Trump's administration, and continued on in the current one.

This got rolling in part due to COVID, but during the Trump Administration there was no loyalty to the "no debt" line of the GOP whatsoever.  

John Barrasso was there the entire time.

Joe Biden's early spending plans would have made it much worse, but Congress did partially reign that in.

By the way, we ramped up a huge one during the Cold War too, and the government basically inflated its way out of it.  I can't say that was intentional, but that is what occurred.

4.  Spending cuts?

Yes, they are needed, but cut all the non-discretionary spending but for defense to the bone, or just flat out, out, and this isn't actually fixed.

We are in a time of peril, but some of our defense spending remains stupid. We just launched, for example, a littoral combat ship of a class we're getting rid of.

At any rate, to really address spending, you need to touch entitlements, or raise taxes, or both.  Any politician who has examined this must know this, or be willfully blind to it.

5. Fuel prices?

In case nobody has noticed, one of the globes largest petroleum producers has attacked one of the world's largest grain producers.

Wars have impacts like huge boulder thrown in small ponds.  The Russo Ukrainian War has resulted in a massive disruption of Russian petroleum on the market and Ukrainian grain on the market.

Massive.

And every day, a massive amount of fuel is consumed in the war.

D'uh.

There should really be consequences for telling what amounts to half-truths, let alone untruths, to the public. But that would depend on the public being willing to listen to what it does not wish to hear.  In Wyoming, we wish to hear that 1) we can have high prices at the wellhead, and 2) high wages in extractive industries; and 3) free fuel at the pump.  Nobody wants to hear that we can't have those three. And no politician is really willing to admit it.

So, we suffer the consequences of our unwillingness not to hear that we can't have pie and whiskey for dinner, and be just fine.

But it will.

It'll kill you.

Just the kind of dim witted thinking that leads to places being just like the places expats, and natives for that matter, complain about.

 Kristi Noem

@KristiNoem17h

South Dakota doesn’t have nice ocean views. We don’t have warm winters.

What we do have is Freedom.

I’ve met hundreds of families who’ve fled Democrat-run states — we welcome all Freedom-loving families that want to live the good life in South Dakota!

Yeah, well Kristi, pretty soon you'll have 1) really extreme right wing politics, followed by 2) all the people who fled "Democrat-run states" wanting just what they left there, which will lead them to yapping up about how horrible the place they left was while they make South Dakota just like the place they left.

Rapid City, get ready to be Denver.

Misplaced Priorities

 

Vox: We Need to Consider the Suffering of the Unborn (Chickens)

But not that human fetuses feel pain?

Trust the Science

On Twitter I saw a photo somebody posted of a sign in Washington D.C., in a hallway, which said "There are two genders, male and female, trust the science", praising it.

And I agree with the statement.

Knowing the underlying politics of the person who posted it, somebody replied: "But we shouldn’t trust science on Covid and vaccines, correct?!"

An excellent point.

The science goes where it goes, it cares not about right and left, and people caring about the science have not the option to ignore that.

The 2024 Election, Part II. What could go wrong?

Donald Trump, who has a really good brain, good genes, leading the GOP into the 2024 election.

 

November 15, 2022

Donald Trump, having lost the popular vote twice before, the electoral vote once before, and whose personality and behavior meant the Senate remained in Democratic hands this election, and the House and Senate went, with the Oval Office, to Democrats in 2020, has announced for the Presidency again.

There is something wrong with Trump.

He will not win, and he stands a good chance of taking the Republican Party into oblivion with him.

November 16, 2022

Apparently none of the major networks carried his entire speech, if they carried any part of it at all, and while it's easy to find this as a news story, it's pretty much impossible to find the entire text of the speech.

That's quite telling.

Trump fed off of the press during his entire Presidency, but now they appear to have grown tired of him.

The Conservative National Review is already out with an editorial, simply captioned:

NO.

Murdoch's tabloid New York Post, not the most admirable newspaper, but one that's reliably Republican, dissed Trump with a page 26 article which on the cover simply has:

Florida Man Makes Announcement.

We'll see, in spite of the looming disaster, my predication is, like Benteen and Reno, the GOP will fall in line and charge into the valley anyhow.  They shouldn't go in there, and quite a few of them know that, but they will anyhow.

November 17, cont:

Keven McCarthy received a visit today from a well known Trump strategist.

For those who may have any doubt, myself included, this probably signals how things this session will go and to whom the House will be working towards.

December 6, 2022

So stated the former President in reaction to the release of information from Twitter.

Trump's call to suspend the Constitution has met with a round of criticism from Republicans, showing the beginnings of a backbone for the first time since the insurrection.  Even at that, however, some would not, as the Republican guest on This Week who struggled not to answer the question about supporting Trump if he was the nominee and then finally stated that he would.

It does seem that, at long last, things may actually be beginning to move away from Trump in the GOP.  Trump's grown more extreme in recent months, and something like this is outright authoritarian.

Trump of course denied that he had called for suspending the constitution, and giving credit perhaps to his statements, his comments are in fact so odd and poorly thought out that it might not really be what he meant.  Most odd of all is the thought that, in 2022, he could be made the President via some odd declaration regarding the 2022 election, which is how I would interpret this really ignorant post.

It appears that the Democrats want to move South Carolina up as the state to cast its votes for the Presidential nominee first.  This would bump Iowa from its first in the nation status.

December 7, 2022

Mr. Trump will not win another election. His most glaring political strength today is his ability to energize Democrats, causing not only historic turnout but attracting gushers of campaign cash – for the opposition.

Fox News. 

February 2, 2023

Nikki Haley, former Governor of South Carolina and Ambassador to the United Nations, is running for the GOP nomination.  She's going to make her formal announcement on February 15.

Haley was born to Indian immigrant parents who are Sikhs.  She's an accountant by training.  She's presently a Methodist, having converted from Sikhism in 1997.  Her views straddle the Republican spectrum.  She makes an interesting contrast to Kamala Harris in that in some ways their story is similar, her parents resided in Canada before immigrating to the US and Harris' mother was Indian, her story fits the more conventional Indian immigrant story.  She's 51 years old, and therefore not a Boomer.

Haley reported called Trump upon making her decision, and Trump reportedly told her that if she felt that way, she should run.  The question now is how long will it be before Trump starts childishly insulting her and calling her by some juvenile nickname.

February 14, 2023

Nikki Haley announced she was running, officially, yesterday.

Oddly, the press just seems to have noticed that she's a bona fide Indian American yesterday, whereas this was widely celebrated in regard to Kamala Harris when she was running.

February 15, 2023

Harriet Hageman endorsed Donald Trump for the 2024 Presidential GOP nomination.

She really had no choice, Trump having endorsed her, and given her constituency, it was a wise move. 

Nonetheless, while I am on the outside of this, I don't expect Trump, or Biden, to be the nominees.  Frankly, given their ages, as I've noted before, I'd put there being well over a 50% chance that neither of them will still be with us, due to natural causes, by the November 24 election. They're basically at the upper edge of the male life span right now, and certainly Trump doesn't appear to be a model of health.

Added to that, I don't expect Trump to prevail in the process of choosing a GOP nominee this time, although I've been wrong on that before.

February 17, 2023

Well, this got weird quickly.

First, Nikki Haley called for politicians obtaining the age of 75 to receive a competency test.

Then, on CNN, this exchange happened.

Don Lemon: "Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime. Sorry, when a woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s, and 30s, and maybe 40s…"

Poppy Harlow: "Are you talking about prime for like child bearing?"

"Don’t shoot the messenger! I’m just saying what the facts are! Google it!"

Ummm. . . eh?

February 23, 2023

Marianne Williamson has announced for the Democratic ticket.

Williamson is a left wing Democrat, 70 years of age, so another of the Boomer crowd of candidates.  She stands no chance.

March 3, 2023

Initiatives to legalize marijuana in Wyoming failed to gather enough signatures to be on the 2024 ballot.

Liz Cheney has joined the faculty of the University of Virginia.

March 5, 2023

CPAC's conference is on, or as it might be more appropriately called, the Tour De Wackadoodle.

Conservatives used to be serious, and this conference, sort of a rarefied meeting of Conservative eggheads.  Now it's the Comiccon of political events.  

Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert and Donald Trump as speakers?  Come on.

March 20, 2023

This Week had an interview with Mike Pence on which demonstrates the extent to which a politician is willing to be a craven wussy in order to run for office.  In spite of being the target of the January 6 protesters, he's really hedging his bets on whether he'll support Donald Trump if Trump is nominated, and that's because, probably, he doesn't want to alienate that base.

You really can't have it both ways on this one.

On all the weekend shows, Ron Desantis took a lot of criticism for his unwillingness to fully back Ukraine, a new position on his part that was likely also a misstep in casting for Trumpist ballots.

Pence really stands no chance of getting the nomination. Desantis did, but those chances look weakened.

April 13, 2023

South Carolina's Tim Scott has formed an exploratory committee.

I know little about Scott, but the Republican Senator can't be disregarded, and would be harder for Trump to routinely childishly insult the way he normally does his opponents.

April 15, 2023

A recent edition of NPR's politics discussed everyone in the GOP now running, which is more people than I thought, although in some ways its because some of the names are those testing the waters, and not really running, yet.

The list of suspects and running is, starting with the openly declared:

Donald Trump. We all know who he is.

Announced: Nov. 15, 2022

Nikki Haley, who is discussed above.

Announced: Feb. 14, 2023

Vivek Ramaswamy.  Ramaswamy is a conservative businessman and well known, apparently, in conservative circles.

Announced: Feb. 21, 2023.

Asa Hutchinson. He's a well known former Arkansas Governor who is an outright opponent of Trump's.

Announced: April 2, 2023

Tim Scott, discussed above.

Turning to the testing the water, the names are.

Ron DeSantis.  He's been in the news a lot lately as the non Trump, Trump.

Mike Pence.  Vying for hte role of the world's most boring man, he's clearly on the edge of announcing.

Chris Sununu.  Well known Governor of New Hampshire and an anti-Trumper.

Glenn Youngkin.  Somewhat known Governor of Virginia.

Kristi Noem.  South Dakota right wing Governor.

Liz Cheney.  We all know who she is.  She's been mentioned, but I doubt she'll run.

John Bolton.  Also a known name, but I'd bet Trump's former National Security Adviser turned Trump opponent won't run.

Chris Christie. Former Governor of New Jersey and clearly thinking of running.

On Trump, he spoke at the NRA convention, effectively linking the NRA, again, to Trump's brand of anti-democratic authoritarianism.  This will ultimately come to be a mistake for the NRA which is branding itself as a force in opposition to the majority of residents of the republic in an extra legal fashion, rather than as a defender of legal rights.

April 16, 2023

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus has formed a Political Action Committee.

It also held a convention in Casper over the weekend, which is somewhat ironic in that the county's GOP organization has gone in the other direction, although in the last election it did elect two members of the caucus.  At any rate, it was noted that it "just" needed ten more members to control the House, which is actually a really tall order.

April 18, 2023

According to the Cowboy State Daily, Chuck Grey has vowed to go after residence requirements and strengthen them before the next election.

Wyoming's requirement had been 60 days prior to the Supreme Court striking it down, at which point the Court suggested 30 days was reasonable.  Wyoming simply went to no residency requirement in order to vote at that time.  

Grey also went after the media in his speech on Saturday.

It's clear he intends to keep his name in the news in this fashion, rather than on the clerical duties associated with his elective office.

The Daily also reports the head of the Wyoming Democratic Party gave a speech in which the leader proclamed he was "proud to be woke", thereby giving an example of why the Democrats can't win anything in the state.

Indeed, that declaration was an example of why more and more people nationwide register as independents.  The more extreme the parties become, the less people wish to be associated with them, left and right.

And with Grey obviously vying for a futurue office, by campaigning from the far right, and the Democrats having once again jumped off the electoral building, we'll close this chapter.

Last Prior Edition:

The 2024 Election, Part I. Early adopters.

Related Threads:

The Post Insurrection. Unfit for any office. Part V.

Lex Anteinternet: What's wrong with the (modern, western) world, part 3. Our lost connection with animals.

ICELANDIC MILKMAID ON HER MORNING ROUND

This is a fine, sturdy pony standing so stockily for his photograph, and he can make light of his burden of buxom beauty with her heavy can of milk. She cares not for saddle or stirrups, for most of these island people are born to horseback, and her everyday costume amply serves the purpose of a riding-habit for this strapping Viking's daughter, with her long tresses shining in the breeze.  

(Original caption, of interest here I wouldn't call this young lady "buxom" or "strapping", but just healthy.  This might say something about how standards have changed over time.)

The other day, I posted this in a footnote on a completely different topic.

Lex Anteinternet: What's wrong with the (modern, western) world, par...:   

4.  One of the odder examples of this, very widespread, is the change in our relationship with animals.

Our species is one of those which has a symbiotic relationship with other ones.  We like to think that this is unique to us, but it isn't.  Many other examples of exist of birds, mammals and even fish that live in very close relationships with other species.  When this occurred with us, we do not know, but we do know that its ancient.  Dogs and modern wolves both evolved from a preexisting wolf species starting some 25,000 to 40,000 years ago, according to the best evidence we currently have. That likely means it was longer ago than that.

Cats, in contrast, self domesticated some 7,000 or so years ago, according to our best estimates.

Cat eating a shellfish, depiction from an Egyptian tomb.

We have a proclivity for both domesticating animals, and accepting self domestication of animals, the truth being that such events are likely part and parcel of each other. Dogs descend from some opportunistic wolves that started hanging around us as we killed things they liked to eat.  Cats from wildcats that came on as we're dirty.  Both evolved thereafter in ways we like, becoming companions as well as servants.  But not just them, horses, pigs, sheep, cattle. . .the list is long.

As we've moved from the natural to the unnatural, we've forgotten that all domestic animals, no matter how cute and cuddly they are, are animals and were originally our servants. And as real children have become less common in WASP culture, the natural instinct to have an infant to take care of, or even adore, has transferred itself upon these unwilling subjects, making them "fur babies".

It's interesting in this context to watch the difference between people who really work with animals, and those who do not.  Just recently, for example, our four-year-old nephew stayed the night due to the snow, and was baffled why our hunting dog, who is a type of working dog but very much a companion, stayed the night indoors.  The ranch dogs do not. . . ever.  The ranch cats, friendly though they are, don't either.

I started this thread back in February, when the entire news on "transgenderism" really hit the fan, so to speak.  Since that time there's been the filing of the sorority lawsuit in Laramie, a host of transgender mass shooting, and an absolutely freakish campaign by Budweiser in which a guy trying to channel a girl of the 1960s is sponsoring Bud Light.  Anyhow, this thread was to tie into it somehow, but now a lot of time has gone by, and working seven days out of seven, etc., I've really forgotten what my brilliant point here was to be, more or less.

But I'll go on anyhow.

This photograph shows a young woman at work, doing something that counted, and doing it in a way that was very close to nature.

So does this one:

Mid Week At Work: Mail Carrier, 1915, Los Angeles

And also this one:

Rural Nurse, Virginia. 1919.

And this one:

LOC Caption:   Sarah Crutcher, 12-year-old girl herding cattle. Route 4, c/o S.O. Crutcher. She was out of school (#49 Comanche County) only 2 weeks this year and that was to herd 100 head of cattle for her father, a prosperous farmer. She said: "I didn't like it either." She is doing well in school. Is in Grade 8.] Location: [Lawton, Oklahoma]

I think one of the interesting things about this photographs is, contrary to the modern image of what women wore when doing livestock work in the early 20th and late 19th Centuries, she's dressed in completely typical female attire for the time. She's riding wearing a fairly long skirt and a woman's hat that is typical for the period.

The point here?

Well this.  

We've gotten to the point where we don't deal with animals as they really are, daily.  We also are at the point where a large percentage of the original WASP demographic of the nation (more on this shortly) has lost most of the values it originally had, and replaced them with very weak tea instead.  And we've so removed ourselves from a state of nature, that most people don't have a grasp on what nature really is.

It's hard not to know the reality of the world if you live in it.

This past week, the Wyoming Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case in Casper in which the plaintiffs claim they suffered emotional distress as their two pet dogs were caught in snares which they claim were improperly placed on public lands by a trapper.  Apparently, in a companion criminal case, the trapper was exonerated.  The state land is very close to the city, which is a problem, but it's still state land, and still unincorporated.

Losing dogs is a tragedy, but emotional distress?  This has never been allowed in the common law, as the law always held that the law is, basically, for people.  If you can claim emotional distress due to the loss of a pet, why not anything?

Now, that sounds cruel, and I understand grieving over the loss of an animal.  I've done it myself.  That is, in fact, one of the things about owning pets.  Normally, you outlive them, and if you are normal, you'll miss them when they die.

It's a part of life.

But emotional distress has been reserved, in the common law, for the loss of humans, based, in the end, for what we feel with the loss of a loved human being.  Not an animal, no matter how loved.

And of course, up until recently, there was no such concept as a legally recognized animal for "emotional support".  Support they did provide, but the bond was in a naturalistic way, not one for which the law afforded protection.

Have we lost something here?

I think we have, and it's connected with real work and real animals.

We'll explore What's Wrong With The World more in this series of threads, but here's one.  Being connected with animals in a real sense, and not in the sanitary removed from nature sense, helped keep us real.  

We've lost that.

It's hard to be obsessively focused on yourself, including your reproductive self, if you're around animals as animals, particularly great big ones that can hurt you.

And I'll bet the thought "I'm a girl, but I want to be a boy" didn't much cross the minds of Icelandic pony riding milkmaids, Oklahoman girl cowpunchers, or Los Angeles mounted mail carriers.

Related Threads:

What's wrong with the (modern, western) world, part 1. A thought on community

What's wrong with the (modern, western) world, part 2. Care, lack of care, and an existential lack of focus.