Showing posts with label United Nations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United Nations. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 6, 2026

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 133d Edition. What happened to that Board of Peace?

The Trump Administration breaks down crying and asks for help from adults.


The Trump administration is desperately seeking UN intervention in the war it started as the US is on the verge of a complete defeat in the war with Iran.

Remember the much vaunted and completely absurd Board of Peace that Trump rolled out when he liked to pretend he was a peacemaker?  The countries that joined were Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Egypt, El Salvador, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

Ask them for help. . . 

Go ahead Marco, call them up. . .

Go ahead, have him do it.


Yesterday the Trump Administration rolled back into existence the Presidential Fitness Test which Eisenhower had put into effect in 1956 and Obama did away with in 2012, replacing it with the Presidential Youth Fitness Program.  Trump can't have anying Obama. . . like a peace deal with Iran that dealt with nuclear stuff . . anyhow.  . .

Secretary of Batshit Crazy Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. made a joke about Trump being able to do a fifty mile hike and Trump joked back that he could do it.

Go ahead.  Let's see him manage that. . . 

Mass Mailings

We've been getting tons of political mass mailings from three candidates.  I noted that here:

And we have this:

Yes, they are.  They're frankly really irritating.

All three of these candidates essentially have the same message. They love Trump as only Trump loves Trump. They love Trump more than Trump's children love Trump.  They love Trump more than Melania, assuming of course that she loves Trump.  

Trump retains a hold on the minds of MAGA and the GOP has descended into the Party of Trump.  There really aren't real Republicans anymore.  As I've noted here already, there's a really good chance that after November the GOP will simply cease to exist.

But is being more Trump, than Trump, a liability in Wyoming?  I guess we'll see.

Not that the mailings are all identical.  Gray's just asserts his Trumpiness.  Rasner, who has a MAGA truckers cap J.B. Welded to his head, takes shots at Gray.  Freiss mostly accidentally shows himself to be super rich and not really knowing what, or where, Wyoming actually is.

Anyhow, the mass mailers are so irritating I took a little time to see if I could return them to senders.  The USPS Reddit, which isn't an official page, makes it clear that would be pointless. They just throw them away.  The topic really irritates mail carriers, as they'd rather you just throw them away yourself.  I can see their point.

Apparently a lot of people just throw them on the ground, which really irritates mail carriers also

What do we know about these guys?


It's occurred to me that Wyomingites have been voting for people they know absolutely nothing about.

This isn't true about candidates from other states.  We know all about Colorado's BoBo and Alaska's Peltola.  Why don't we know more about these people who claim to have all these super duper values that are supposed to reflect the state's?

Take Gray for example  Next to nothing about him is publicly known.  He could be robbing liquor stores on his off hours and we wouldn't know.

All we know about him is he grew up near Los Angeles and graduated from high school there in 2008, after he went to Wharton, where based on the economic example of Donald Trump, who also graduated from Wharton, must educate its students with Archie cartoons.  He spent his summers in Wyoming growing up, and when he graduated from Wharton, he went right to work for his father's radio station where he broadcast political babble.  That's pretty darned close to never having had to work in the real world.  He rose to his current position by barely beating Tara Nethercott for the Secretary of State by constant hystericaly spewing of lies.

He was a founding member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus which was heavily funded by out of state and rich carpetbagger money.  I know that he's a Catholic, but only because when he lived in Casper I'd see him at Mass on odd occasion.  My presumption is that he regularly attended Mass, although I don't know that.  He went to a different parish than I do.  Frankly, if I'd been a parish priest, I'd have called him out for lying.

He's unmarried at age 36 and nobody is ever mentioned as a love interest.  Maybe he has one.  For all I know he could be dating AoC.  But the question is never asked.  It should be, as being unmarried at 36 is frankly odd and we have a right to know if people are personally living up to their declared political values.  It's one thing if he's so dedicated to work, or whatever, that he doesn't have time for gals.  Maybe he just isn't interested, some percentage of people, a small number, aren't.  But if on the other hand he hangs out with the dancers from The Clown's Den every night, and I'm in no way suggesting he is, we ought to be so informed.

Press, you aren't doing your job.

We don't know much about Reid Rasner either, although the fact that he keeps suing people for defamation (and people have said some awful things about him) has revealed a little.  In one suit he admitted, if "admission" is the correct word, to being a homosexual.  In the suits he's filed he's taken grave exception to being accused of molestation of somebody below 18, or molesting anyone, and I don't blame him a bit for that.  I suspect that some people just believe that every homosexual does things like that, which is certainly not the case, but suspecting such a thing is just flat out wrong.  The suits therefore make sense, although its really risky for a politician.  He's some sort of investment businessman.  So all in all, we know a lot more about him than we do Gray, which is really odd.  I don't like his politics at all, but the fact that he's been open about these things is really to his credit.

With both of these candidates what we don't know is if their mailing appearance matches anything about them in real life.  Chuck likes to wear Western cut wool shirts now, but he looks really uncomfortable appearing that way.  His button-down and blue blazer looked a lot more natural.  He's been videoed on oilfield locations, where he's never worked, and on a four wheeler, which looks unnatural to him.

Rasner likes to be photographed with firearms.  So does Freiss.  But do they really use them?   Maybe, but do we really know that?

Freiss, I'd note, is another one.  His father was a super wealthy carpetbagger and he seems to be the same.  Go home, carpetbagger.

Balow, who is the best candidate so far, is from Laramie.  As already noted, Gray is a carpetbagger from California.  Rasner is from Casper.  She was a career educator who took over as Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction after the disastrous Cindy Hill, who brought full blown batshit into that office.  Balow held that office and then took the same one in Virginia, where the position is (sensibly) appointed.  People have held that against here here, which is really ironic.  If that's bad, Brent Bien ought to be exiled to the far side of the moon.

We know a lot more about Hageman, Barrasso, Lummis and Gordon, although I'd even question that to some extent.  There's some questions I'd ask Hageman and Barrasso which I think are legitimate, but which just aren't done.

Anyhow, Press, why don't you tell us something about these people?  You report on them so little, that it's honestly the case that a triple ax murderer could move into Wyoming.

Or maybe it doesn't matter.  

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 132nd Edition. Voting with their feet

Saturday, April 18, 2026

Thursday, April 18, 1946. Riding clubs, Yugoslavia, minor league baseball, teen queens.

The Powell Valley Riding club was formed in Powell Wyoming.

The League of Nations dissolved and transferred its assets to the United Nations.

Jackie Robinson appeared in his first minor league game in the farm teams for Major League Baseball.  He had previously played for the Kansas City Monarchs.  His current team was the Montreal Royals.

The US recognized the government of Tito in Yugoslavia.

The International Court of Justice held its first meeting.

English actress and 1960s Disney teen queen Haley Mills was born.


She managed to transition into adult roles after her Disney era and still acts.  Probably her most famous early movie was The Parent Trap.

Last edition:

Wednesday, April 17, 1946. Syria becomes independent. Protests in Japan.

Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Wednesday, March 31, 1976. Karen Ann Quinlan.

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Karen Ann Quinlan, suffering from irreversible brain damage, could be disconnected from the ventilator that had been keeping her alive since April 15, 1975. She had been found unresponsive after she consumed Valium along with alcohol while on a crash diet and lapsed into a coma. A Catholic, her parents had appealed to Catholic moral theology arguing that extraordinary means not be required to preserve her life.

She'd live for an additional nine years.

She had been trying to lose weight to fit into a bikini.

This is one of those events I can personally recall.  It was a major news story at the time.

The UN Security Council found South Africa liable for an act of aggression against Angola, a fairly dubious Security Council conviction given that what South Africa really did is intervene in a civil war that other powers were likewise involved in.

The slam dunk was restored as a legal college basketball feature.

Last edition:

Wednesday, March 24, 1976. Passing of Field Marshal Montgomery.

Monday, February 16, 2026

Saturday, February 16, 1946. Potato consumption. Frozen food. Helicopters.

Frozen french fries were introduced by Maxson Food Systems of Long Island, New York.

From time to time, we'll have these a lot.

American per-capita potato consumption had interestingly declined since 1910, and was not measured at previous levels until 1962, when french fries were a fast-food restaurant staple.

I would not have guessed that, or frankly anything close to that.

Indeed a decline from 1910 to 1962 really surprises me.

I personally used to grow large volumes of potatoes, picking up where my later father had left off.  Maybe because its because I'm more Irish than most Irish, but I love them.

An item on frying fries:

Chugwater Fry-Off: Are Beef Tallow French Fries Really Better?

The first UN Security Council veto was made by the Soviet Union, killing a resolution concerning the withdrawal of British and French forces from Syria and Lebanon, while it still occupied parts of Iran.  Basically, the Soviet Union wanted the British and French out of Syria and Lebanon (which really was a French thing) while they still had their claws in Eastern Europe, North Korea, Sakhalin, and Iran.

They'd leave Iran, and with the fall of the Soviet Union, they'd leave many other places as well. With the Russo Ukrainian War, they're trying to claw their way back in, however ,and they've never left Sakahlian.

The Sikorsky S-51, the first helicopter sold for commercial rather than military use, although it received military use, was flown for the first time.


The chopper would be manufactured until the late 1950s.

By United States Navy - Scanned from Alexander, Joseph H., Fleet Operations in a Mobile War: September 1950-June 1951, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 2001, p. 39., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72961678

There was major news on the strike wave:


A Denver merchant noted the anniversary of Scouting:


Last edition:

Thursday, February 14, 1946. ENIAC.

Labels: 

Monday, February 2, 2026

Monday,. February 2, 1976. Moynihan resigns.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan resigned  as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.in anticipation of running for Congress, although he did not express that goal at the time.

Would that we could be braced by such great mean again.

Last edition:

Friday, January 30, 1976. Opening Pandora's Box.

Friday, January 30, 2026

Wednesday, January 30, 1946. Roosevelt Dime.

 


The Roosevelt Dime was introduced on what would have been the late President's 64th birthday.  The design replaced the Mercury Dime.


Plans for honoring Roosevelt on the dime commenced very soon after his death.  He's been on the dime so long, I actually can't recall every seeing any other design, although I'm sure that I have.

By TUBS - This vector image includes elements that have been taken or adapted from this file:, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15952232

Transcarpathia (Ruthenia) became the Zakarpattia Oblast of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.  The region of Ruthenia is obscure to Americans, but the Ruthenian Catholic Church is fairly well represented in the U.S. as a significant Eastern Rite branch of Catholicism.

The United Nations passed UNSCR calling on Iran and the USSR to resolve the crisis caused by the Soviet invasion of Iran.

Last edition:

Sunday, January 27, 1946. Die Rückkehr der Demokratie

Saturday, January 10, 2026

Thursday, January 10, 1946. The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

The first meeting of the UN General Assembly was held.

Prime Minister Clement Attlee opened the session.

Paul-Henri Spaak of Belgium won the post of President of the Assembly. Trygve Lie of Norway was selected as the  first Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Trygve Lie

Last edition:

Sunday, January 6, 1946. A sort of election in some areas of Vietnam.

Saturday, December 27, 2025

Thursday, December 27, 1945. Big Bills.

The UN International Monetary Fund was established.

The United States discontinued the printing of "large denominations", that is over $100.00, of currency.


The bills printed up to that date were discontinued officially on July 14, 1969 and began to withdraw them from circulation at that time.

Belgium ratified the UN Charter.

Last edition:

Wednesday, December 26, 1945. Boxing Day.

Thursday, November 27, 2025

Tuesday, November 27, 1945. Slinky first sold.

The legendary toy The Slinky went on sale for the first time.  Gimbels in Philadelphia offered it.

Patrick J. Hurley, attorney and career civil servant, resigned as Ambassador of China having submitted a blistering letter of resignation the day prior.


Born in Oklahoma to Irish immigrant parents, he's started off in life as a cowboy and mule driver before becoming a lawyer. His work as a mule driver started when he was only 11 years old, and he attempted to join the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry at age 15.  He graduated with a law degree from National University School of Law in 1908 and went to work in Tulsa.  He received a second law degree from George Washington University in 1913, by which time he was already a successful businessman and rising in Republican politics.  He served in the Oklahoma National Guard during the Punitive Expedition and was a Judge Advocate during World War One, as well as serving as an artillery officer, for which he received a Silver Star.  He was the Assistant Secretary of War under Hoover.  He started of World War Two as a General before going on to be a diplomat.  He'd retire to New Mexico where he'd die in 1963.

Most assessments of his role in China are not favorable.

As the Sheridan paper makes plain, the US was busy beating itself up over Pearl Harbor, even as the early rumblings of the Cold War were beginning.

He was replaced in his role by George Marshall, a role that Marshall is generally not recalled for.

Norway adopted the UN Charter.

Last edition:

Monday, November 26, 1945. Now's the Time, Wolves and War Brides, Questionable claim about Goering, Test tube babies in Virgin hospitals, Japanese social insurance, ties for Christmas.

Friday, November 21, 2025

Wednesday, November 21, 1945. UAE goes on strike.

The United Auto Workers went out on strike against General Motors.  They were seeking a 30% increase in wages and a hold on product prices.


General Motors currently has 162,000 employees.  The actual number of UAE GM workers that went on strike was 320,000.

The Sheridan Press noted the season:


Other cartoons for this edition:


Guatemala ratified the UN Charter.

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 20, 1945. Commencement of the Nuremberg Trials.

Sunday, November 16, 2025

Friday, November 16, 1945. UNESCO founded. USS Laramie decommissioned.

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was founded.

The Azerbaijan People's Government, a puppet of the Soviet Union, began an uprising in Iranian Azerbaijan Province.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower testified before the House Military Affairs Committee that “Nothing guides Russian policy so much as a desire for friendship with the United States.”   The NYT headline read:
Eisenhower Holds Training Essential to Safety of U.S.; General Says It Is Best Way to Avoid War, or if Sudden Blow Comes to Avert Disaster --Declares Russia Wants Amity EISENHOWER HOLDS TRAINING IS VITAL Says Russia Wants U.S. Amity Time Is of the Essence, He Says
Today In Wyoming's History: November 16

Monday, November 10, 2025

Monday, November 10, 1975. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

 

The massive Great Lakes freighter went down with all 29 hands.

The storm.

The ballad commemorating the ships loss would come out the following year.

Italy and Yugoslavia signed the Treaty of Osimo resolving the long running dispute over Trieste.

The Communists forces of the MPLA  defeated the FNLA in a battle over the capital of Angola, Luanda.

The United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 equating Zionism with racism.  The Resolution would be revoked in 1991.

Last edition:

Thursday, October 30, 1975. King Juan Carlos I of Spain became acting head of state of the country after Franco conceded he was too ill to govern.