Wednesday, October 20, 1915. Arms okay for Carranza.

The impact of Woodrow Wilsons' administration recognizing Carranza, whose followers had blown off the Convention of Aguascalientes, and who personally hated the United States, was becoming immediately clear.

Arms to Carranza. . . that would tip the scales for sure.

While Wilson had his hand on the scale of the Mexican Revolution, he was issuing a proclaimation about American Thanksgiving.

President Wilson issued a proclamation regarding Thanksgiving.

Proclamation 1316—Thanksgiving Day, 1915

October 20, 1915

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

It has long been the honoured custom of our people to turn in the fruitful autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His many blessings and mercies to us as a nation. The year that is now drawing to a close since we last observed our day of national thanksgiving has been, while a year of discipline because of the mighty forces of war and of change which have disturbed the world, also a year of special blessing for us.

Another year of peace has been vouchsafed us; another year in which not only to take thought of our duty to ourselves and to mankind but also to adjust ourselves to the many responsibilities thrust upon us by a war which has involved almost the whole of Europe. We have been able to assert our rights and the rights of mankind without breach of friendship with the great nations with whom we have had to deal; and while we have asserted rights we have been able also to perform duties and exercise privileges of succour and helpfulness which should serve to demonstrate our desire to make the offices of friendship the means of truly disinterested and unselfish service. Our ability to serve all who could avail themselves of our services in the midst of crisis has been increased, by a gracious Providence, by more and more abundant crops. our ample financial resources have enabled us to steady the markets of the world and facilitate necessary movements of commerce which the war might otherwise have rendered impossible; and our people have come more and more to a sober realization of the part they have been called upon to play in a time when all the world is shaken by unparalleled distresses and disasters. The extraordinary circumstances of such a time have done much to quicken our national consciousness and deepen and confirm our confidence in the principles of peace and freedom by which we have always sought to be guided. Out of darkness and perplexity have come firmer counsels of policy and clearer perceptions of the essential welfare of the nation. We have prospered while other peoples were at war, but our prosperity has been vouchsafed us, we believe, only that we might the better perform the functions which war rendered it impossible for them to perform.

Now, Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Thursday the twenty-fifth of November next as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, and invite the people throughout the land to cease from their wonted occupations and in their several homes and places of worship render thanks to Almighty God.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this twentieth day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and fifteen and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and fortieth.

Signature of Woodrow Wilson

Louis Botha, once a Boer General, of the South African Party won the 1915 South African general election and retained power.

French forces reached the town of Krivolak on the Vardar river in Vardar Macedonia. The British dug in at a mountain pass near Kosturino and Doiran Like.

The Ottoman Empire brought an end to Armenian resistance at Urfa.

The British Commonwealth recognized women as bus and tram operators for the duration, something that had been going on for some time.

Sweden established the Swedish Infantry Officers College.

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Today -100: October 20, 1915: With bleeding heart ...: Headline of the Day -100:  Male voters in New Jersey reject women’s suffrage in the referendum by roughly 133,000 to 184,000. It los...

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 19, 1915. The US extends recognition to Carranza.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Bulgaria, Constitutionalist Army, Italy, Mexican Border War, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Russia, Texas, Texas (Brownsville), Venustiano Carranza, World War One

 

Marine artillery shell detonates over freeway during Camp Pendleton event

Lex Anteinternet: Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It From Chicago to Portland, James Comey to Letitia James, and so much else—this is no longer America. Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It From Chicago to Portland, James Comey to Letitia James, and so much else—this is no longer America.

Lex Anteinternet: Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Mi...:  

Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It From Chicago to Portland, James Comey to Letitia James, and so much else—this is no longer America.

 Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It

From Chicago to Portland, James Comey to Letitia James, and so much else—this is no longer America.

Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It From Chicago to Portland, James Comey to Letitia James, and so much else—this is no longer America.

 Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It

From Chicago to Portland, James Comey to Letitia James, and so much else—this is no longer America.

How Super Bowl LX should be informing American Catholics why the populist far right will betray them as soon as it gets a chance.

Last weekend we ran Catholic Ross Douthat's interview with Doug Wilson.  In his interview Douthat kept trying to pin Wilson down on whether there was a place for Catholics in Wilson's vision of a Calvinist theocratic United States. Wilson came down on yes, but he hedged his bets a fair amount.

The real answer to whether members of the New Apostolic Reformation feel that was has been provided by Super Bowl LX.

I don't like football at all.  I won't be watching the halftime game which I always find to be much like professional football itself, grossly overblown.  But it does provide a weathervane to the culture.  The music associated with professional football shows very much who football feels to be the up and coming audience.

The performer chosen was "Bad Bunny".

Bad Bunny is one Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio.  He was born in Puerto Rico.  He sings in Spanish.

Well the late Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA is having none of it.  It's going to offer its own  “All American Halftime Show”.

Oscasio is an American.  Puerto Ricans have been since March 2, 1917.  They're fully American, and frankly, Puerto Rico ought to be granted statehood, there being absolutely no good reason for it not being a U.S. State at this point.  And, Oscasio is a Christian.  He's a Catholic, whose mother is apparently very devout.

Here's the thing.  Turning Point USA is exhibiting a populist far right Freudian Slip.  Some members of the organization are just too ignorant to know either of these points, but some know them and don't believe that Puerto Ricans are "real" Americans, or that Catholics are Christians.

The last point is particularly ironic.  Lots in the Evangelical far right like to say they're "Bible Believing" Christians, by which they mean sola scriptura Christians. Sola Scriptura is itself Biblically indefensible as St. Paul informed the Thessalonians that they should stand firm in the "traditions" that they had been brought, indicating that there were in fact traditions already.  We know now what those traditions were, as Christians had been writing many of them down in other texts  that didn't end up in the Bible almost from the very beginning.  But more ironic yet is this, the Bible is a Catholic book.

This isn't a matter for debate.  It just is.  We know how the books of the Bible came about, who wrote them, and what they believed.  There was, at the time, just one "holy, catholic and apostolic church", and that was the Catholic Church.  You can add the Orthodox churches to this list today as they directly descend from it.  But in a strict sense, members of various Evangelical churches don't fit into this category.  Indeed, fear of not fitting into it by various Protestant groups has lead some of them to claim membership all along, such as various branches of the Lutheran, Anglican and Methodist churches. They don't dispute that the Catholics and Orthodox are direct descendants of the original Catholic Church, and indeed, they agree that the Catholic Church is the uninterrupted Christian church that Christ founded.  Evangelical churches that don't hold that view are frankly ignorant on this point.

But they are persistent in their ignorance.  So much so, that many of them don't believe that the original Christians, the Catholics, are Christians at all.

We put the Bible together, and the New Testament was written by inspired Catholic authors, but they ignore that.

As I've noted before, and as Wilson conceded, this is a Protestant nation and moreover Wilson was also right that it was founded as a Calvinist one.  That's a major reason that for much of this country's history the Irish, Italians, and other Catholics were detested and even regarded as a separate race.  It's part of why Hispanics are regarded as a separate race today.  Stripped of his fishing tackle piercings, Bad Bunny could look like a Spanish Conquistador. . . not a "Pilgrim".   

Something about the election of Barrack Obama really brought out latent racism in this country.  The Obergefell decision really unleashed a deep dormant conservatism in the population, but one that followed the American Civil Religion rather than real Christianity.  The New Apostolic Reformation took advantage of that and has been advancing its cause under the radar, until recently, when it started doing it more openly, although still not so openly that the fact that we're in the midst of a Christian Nationalist coup right now is appreciated.  Quite a few conservative Catholics, not really well schooled in what far right Evangelical Christians believe, or just badly catechized themselves, have joyously gone along with it, as it seems to address, and to some degree if fact addresses, the cultural rot that has set in, in the Western world.

But it will catch up with us.

Welcome back to the Ghetto.

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Court Watch, Part III.

Sycophantic Toady.

Real transmissions.

A Wyoming Party, and some other thoughts. We're on our own.

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Blog Mirror: In Anti-Catholic Crusade, Trump's ICE Targets Holy Mass in Chicago

 

In Anti-Catholic Crusade, Trump's ICE Targets Holy Mass in Chicago

 

 

A Wyoming Party, and some other thoughts. We're on our own.

Jane Banner: Shouldn't we wait for back up?

Ben: This isn't the land of waiting for back up. This is the land of you're on your own.

Wind River. 

In the film Wind River, set on the Wind River Indian Reservation, Tribal policeman Ben and FBI agent Jane Banner are confronted with gunfire while investigating a crime and have the exchange noted above.

Wyomingites love that quote, and there's a lot to it.*

Not only is there a lot to it, its very much the case regarding politics in this state.  Our Congressional delegation doesn't support or represent us on many of the existential matters at play in the state.  Not one darned bit.

And they're not going to.  Just as in Wind River the two policemen, and an Animal Damage officer, were  under assault by those that they were going to have to take on, on their own, so are the residents of this state.

The other day I saw a lifelong member of Wyoming's Republican Party, who once held positions within it, decried. Wyoming's Congressional Representation as "bought and paid for".  This followed, by a period of a couple of years, a similar claim by a former significant Wyoming politicians that I somewhat know. Another person I know describe all three of Wyoming's Congressional delegation as "ass kissing sycophants".

There's something to all of that.

The vast bulk of their large campaign war chests comes from out of state money.  Compared to it, the money from  Wyomingites doesn't even amount to a drop in the bucket.  It's more like a drop in a 55 gallon barrel.  Wyoming public media, in a news story on the topic, reported:

JU: OpenSecrets reported that Rep. Harriet Hageman received $15,000 from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Sen. John Barrasso has received over $70,000 from a private equity firm based in New York and California [from 2019 to 2024]. And Sen. Cynthia Lummis received over $100,000 from the Club for Growth, a conservative PAC [from 2019 to 2024]. In the face of more powerful organizations like those, how do individual or local donors in Wyoming make their voice more impactful? Or their donation more impactful?

Some group calling itself the Americans for Prosperity have been running non stop adds on social media thanking John Barrasso for his role in the Big Ugly.

Who are these people and organizations?  Wyomingites?

Not hardly.  Wikipedia says of them:

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), founded in 2004, is a libertarian conservative political advocacy group in the United States affiliated with brothers Charles Koch and the late David Koch.[6] As the Koch family's primary political advocacy group, it has been viewed as one of the most influential American conservative organizations.

Club for Growth is a radical right wing economic outfit as well.

American Israel Public Affairs Committee:  What does have to do with the average Wyomingite?

Not freaking much.

In a couple of place around town, there are billboard featuring all three of our Congress people with the Tetons in the background thanking all three for standing with "American Energy", by which they no doubt mean petroleum and coal, not wind, solar and nuclear (as we've recently learned locally).

The bigger problem is that the Congressional delegation flat out ignores the views of Wyomingites on some major issues, public lands being one.  Wyomingites are overwhelmingly opposed to the Federal lands going to the states, and are opposed to public lands being sold.  That well known fact hasn't done anything to keep our Congressional delegation from supporting those things, and it's done nothing whatsoever to keep the Wyoming GOP from backing land transfers.

Dr. John Barrasso, who after all is a East Coaster and looks like one, has his head so far up Trump's ass on a daily basis that he can examine Trump's tonsils from the backside.  He has no use for Wyoming anymore.  My guess is that he's in his last term as he knows that he's not going to be the Senate Majority Leader so being a fascist flunky will be his career achievement, and he's okay with that.

Who knows what's up with Lummis.  She's always been a Cheshire cat in the first place, with a sort of snarky smile. She goes her own way, and that way isn't yours.

Harriet Hageman is the most honest of the bunch. Sure, she's stuck in the Powder River Campaign, but her views, while not the same as most of hours, re honestly  and openly held.

Chuck Gray?  Gray is just using Wyoming, that's about it.  And his politics bend with the wind.  He's a far right winger Greenpeacer if you can make sense of that, and he's  hoping you can't and will yell at you until you are distracted.

Right now, the Wyoming GOP is the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. The Wyoming Freedom Caucus is packed with people who are not from Wyoming, and how have brought their dumbass ideas with them and want to impose them on Wyoming.

They're succeeding in doing so. There's really no saving the GOP in the state. The old GOP, which was uniquely Wyoming in view, is dead, taking the path of the old Wyoming Democratic Party, which did as well, and which died first.

In its place we have the Dixiecrats and those whose one and only value is their pocket books.

They need to go.

But it would appear unlikely that they can be dislodged from the current GOP, put on plane, and shipped back to the their home states, like they should be.

The only two things the two failed parties agree on is that you should never vote for a third party.  That's how we got into this mess.

So maybe it's time for some new parties not beholding to the crap these parties are.

And why not local parties?

Let's start with something that should be clear to all, but really seems not to be.

There's nothing American or Constitutional about a "two party system". The founders, while they rapidly fell into parties, didn't approve of them at all.  A primary system, such as we and most other states have, is existentially anti democratic and existentially unconstitutional.  They're nothing more than state funded party elections that are geared to conspire against any person from a third party, or just an independent running.  Primary elections would make sense only if no party affiliation was noted on the ballot at all.  Get 1,000 signatures to get you on, perhaps, and you are on.

Moreover, it's really time to allow for recalls of Congressional representation.  If we had that, all three of our Congressional people would be facing a recall election right now.  John Barrasso, who earnestly believes whatever you believe as you believe it, and even more than you do, would now be leading armed raids into Utah against Mike Lee if that was the case, rather than spending all of his time kissing Trump's ass.

Suffice it to say, we're not being served well.

What would a party that actually reflected Wyoming's values look like?

Well, of course, in stating something like that, I'm inevitably going to post what a party that reflected my values, mostly, would look like.

• It'd protect public lands.
• It'd have a land ethic.
• It'd protect democratic values, as in voting.
• It'd realize that science isn't a fib, and that some things have to adjust because of scientific reality.
• It would have a tax system that accepted that out of state imports with huge amounts of cash should be taxed.

Frankly, it'd look a lot like what the GOP here used to look like.

It's be overall conservative, without a doubt, but conservative in a Wyoming sort of Way, not in a Dixiecrat sort of way.

Most Wyomingites who are from Wyoming, save those who had drank the MAGA/Charlie Kirk Kool aide, would likely vote for it.

We're sure not going to be saved by the Democrats. They'll do anything they can to wreck their own chances at the ballot box. And we're not going to be saved by the Republicans either.  The GOP has wiped out the real party and put in place a party that Nathan Bedford Forest would be proud of.

We're on our own.

Footnotes:

*I'll confess that I've done a lot of legal work on the Wind River Reservation, and it haunts me.  This is a really good move, and I've watched it twice in the theatre, but I can't get through it again.  May the perpetual light shine upon many there.

 

Scared.

 As in really scared.

That is the Administration and the GOP of the No Kings rallies.

Mike Johnson is flat out at the bed wetting level.  Each of his posts are more extreme and visibly scared than the one before.  They even had to drag out George Soros as a boogeyman.  

It's almost like they expect John Wick and Kaiser Sose to come riding in on electric Harley's packing the expanded edition of The Epstein Files or something.

Or, more probably, that the American public won't believe it's a mass uprising calling for airstrikes on Los Angeles.

What on earth?

 

The President in Decline: Trump’s Mind, His Myths, and the Machinery Around Him

 

Trump Announces Beef Price Reduction Deal with Argentina, US Supplies Expected to Fall in 2026

In other words, screw US cattle producers to benefit Argentina.

What horseshit.

Well, Harriet, Cynthia and Dr. John, are you going to do something about it.

Why do agriculturalist vote for Republicans anyway? Do we just like being screwed?

The Work Truck Blog: Real transmissions.

The Work Truck Blog: Real transmissions.: 

Real transmissions.

About once a year I go on an unhinged campaign for the restoration of manual transmissions.  I absolutely know, right from the onset, that it's totally pointless.  Nonetheless, the fact that no manual transmission pickup trucks are made in the US, outside of the Jeep pickups, really angers me.

100% of the reasons stated in support of automatic transmissions are pure unadulterated bullshit.  The real, and only, reason they're put in pickup trucks is that most pickup trucks are driven in cities, including ones that have fanciful outdoorsy names and have something like "off road edition" emblazoned on their sides.  If it's got an automatic transmission, it's the kawaii thirteen year old girl edition.  That's it.  It's made for wimps who want to pretend their outdoorsy and don't know how to drive.

The market, of course, is what controls this, and ever since the day guys who never get outside the Denver city limits started dominating the market, this is what we've ended up with.

Now, in defense of engineering, automatic transmissions in trucks have gotten much better than they used to be.  Indeed, ever since General Motors began to put Alison transmissions in their diesels, they've been pretty good. None of that changes the fact that all of the disadvantages associated with automatic transmissions fully remain.  You are actually using the engine to drive the transmission, which is inherently inefficient, and you are letting hydraulic pressure determine when to shift gears, which is mindless.  It can also be dangerous.  All of the features that engineers built in to allow automatic transmissions not to be mindless killers are ignored by everyone who drives one.

And the fact that they have a lot of extra parts means they're going to wear out more quickly.  I have had in the various vehicles I own two transmissions wear out. . . both of them were automatics. 

And, yes, I've owned vehicles with automatic transmissions.

So, anyway, it always goes the same way.  I get angry about it, and usually when it dawns on me that I can never, ever, buy a new vehicle now as they all have automatic transmissions.  I end up emailing the Dodge dealer asking for a cab and chassis with no transmission, as I can take care of the transmission part.

"Um. . . . we can't do that".

Oh bullshit, you certainly can.

Occasionally I called Dodge, which I did this week.  I ended up with some poor (probably Filipino, based on the accent) woman who tried to help.

"I want a cab and chassis with no transmission, or I want you to put in a G56 transmission and I know that you have some around there".

"Um. . . . just a moment sir. . . . I tried to ask somebody but nobody knows the answer to this. .  I'm sorry".

The current diesel engine in Dodge's is the the B6.7.  I really wonder if there's any new made manual that will mate up to it, although the costs of doing so would likely be insane. I wonder the same about the somewhat bigger Cummis engines, up to the the L9 and B7.2.  I'd think there's have to be one for hte 7.2.

Sycophantic Toady.

They have this big 'I Hate America' rally this Saturday in Washington where you have all these far-left activists groups coming to protest the president and the administration.

Dr. John Barrasso.

Barrasso has become a complete, and totally worthless, Trump stooge.

This statement is absolutely outrageous.  Dr. John, who used to show up on television as "Wyoming's Doctor", frankly has next to nothing in common with the state he supposedly represents, but he's not even trying to really represent it now. In the words of one politician I know, Barrasso's "head is up Trump's butt".

If John was attune to his own state, and cared, neither of which is the case, he'd know that in the very town he claims to be his residence, there will be a No Kings event.

It's time for Wyoming to dump people like Barrasso.  He can move on to Jackson and hang out with the wealthy, or go back to Pennsylvania  and reemerge a lot further to the left.

Absolutely shameful.

Blog Mirror: Making the ‘original energy bar’: The chokecherry patty

 

Making the ‘original energy bar’: The chokecherry patty

Saturday, October 17, 1925: When two ride one horse.

Hasan al-Kharrat' rebels entered Damascus.

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Today -100: October 17, 1925: When two ride one ho...: French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand says the Locarno Conference lays the foundations for the United States of Europe. Hurrah! In Locarn...

This item contains an interesting one one regarding modification of the wedding vows in the Episcopal service. 

"What a Protection Electric Light is" advertisement for Edison Mazda . The Saturday Evening Post, October 17, 1925.

 

Last edition:

Friday, October 16, 1925. The Locarno conference ended with several agreements in place and an atmosphere of optimism.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Diplomacy, Europe, Locarno Conference

Egg and Smoked Salmon Sandwich (1920) on Sandwiches of History

This looks pretty good.  Frankly, it would have been a really good option for Fridays for Catholics, and well it still is a really good option for Catholics on Fridays.

I think I'll give this a try.

Wednesday, October 17, 1910. The 1910 Cuba Hurricane,

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Today -100: October 17, 1910: Of Kiddo the wonder cat: Kiddo the cat jumped out of the dirigible America but was fished out of the sea.

Last edition:

Saturday, October 15, 1910. Episcopal concept.

Labels: 1870s, 1875, 1910, 1910s, Agriculture, American Revolution, Imperial Japanese Navy, Lighter than air aircraft, Ohio (Cincinnati), Oxford Movement, Protestant, religion

Wars and Rumors of War, 2025. Part 7. The snatching victory edition.

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.

I don't speak Russian, and I have no idea what's being said, but I'm sure that the Russian soldiers being shown in the photos are dead.  Russian casualties are massive.

All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

Voltaire

Here's something to consider about the war between Russia and Ukraine as the juvenile demented Putin fanboy King Donny, who declared himself a war hero yesterday, attempts to bring the war to an end.

Ukraine may very well be winning this war.

Russian casualties are massive.  According to one report, the Russians sustained 20,000 combat deaths last month, and have sustained 1,000,000 casualties so far in the war.  Russia is only still able to be in the war at this point as it's not a democracy.  A democratic regime could not sustain this rate of attrition.  The U.S. Army became combat ineffective in Vietnam after 50,000 deaths. . . for the entire war.

Which is not to say that the Russian Army has been terribly effective.  It hasn't.  Putin isn't holding back in the war, he can't ramp it up any more than this.  He's even brought in foreign mercenaries in the form of North Korean troops, who also proved to be ineffective.

Today is the anniversary of Czar Nicholas II taking command of the Imperial Russian Army in 1915 as it slid towards being combat ineffective.  In 1917 the Russian Army simply disintegrated.  On July 17, 1918, the entire imperial household was murdered.

The Czar was a decent man.  Vladimir Putin is not.  He was a member of the KGB.  He is also a student of Russian history and seeks to revive what the USSR lost, which itself sought to restore what had fallen apart in the Russian Revolution, a Russian Empire.  

He needs Ukraine for that.

The collapse of the Imperial Russian Army was somewhat sudden.  As late as 1917 it was able to launch a massive summer offensive that gained ground. Then it stopped. Then it collapsed.

At this rate, the end is coming for Putin.  The Russian Army continues to gain a little ground, but just a little.  If it stops, and is pushed back a bit, the end of Putin's rule may come pretty quickly.

Putin likely knows that, which is why he flew to Alaska, knowing that he could depend on his loyal little lap dog to piss all over the floor in joy when he saw him, and do his bidding.

What should occur now is this.

The secondary tariff bill directed on countries that receive Russian oil should pass Congress.

US arms supplies, and European ones (which have actually amounted to more than American ones) should resume.

Contacts should be made within the Russian military and government who can facilitate the change in regime, many of whom are likely afraid right now of being pushed out of five story window.

Personally, I'd go further than this, although I know its unlikely to happen right now.  I feel NATO forces should be deployed to those Ukrainian provinces which have not seen Russian incursions on a "do not enter" basis.  I'd also encourage the raising of Western units that would be equipped in a Western fashion, made up of men who are veterans of Western armies, along the lines of the American Volunteer Group and Spanish Blue Division (and yes, I know that this is an unfortunate example) of World War Two.  I'm pretty sure that substantial numbers of good Western troops could join the fight in that manner, but I also know that this won't occur.

At any rate, Trump ought to just go back to the golf course and leave the serious world alone.  The serious world ought to back Ukraine, which may very well be winning the war.

August 21, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

Major Russian refinery  hit last night.

August 22, 2025

Israel v. Hamas

The UN had declared that a famine is occuring in Gaza.

Russo Ukrainian War

The Russians hit a US owned factory in Ukraine last night.

The Ukrainians hit a fuel train in Crimea.

US v. ISIL

U.S. forces killed an  ISIS ‘key financier’ in Syrian  raid on Aug. 19.

August 25, 2025

Middle East

Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen's capital yesterday.

August 29, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

Ukraine took out 4.7% of Russia's refining capacity last night.

August 30, 2025

Israel v. Hamas

Israel declared an area within Gaza a "combat zone".

September 3, 2025

United States v. Drug Cartels

The US sank a drug transporting ship belonging to the Tren de Aragua through an illegal use of the U.S. military.

September 8, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

Over the weekend the Russians launched largest drone attack of the war.

Guess Putin doesn't really care much about Donald "Col. Kilgore" Trump's two week deadlines.

Middle East War

A Houthi drone hit an Israeli airport.

Hmmm. . . . doesn't seem like that war ended either.

September 10, 2025

Middle East War

Israel hit Hamas' political headquarters in Qatar in an airstrike.

Qatar hosts a significant US military mission.

Russo Ukrainian War

Poland shot down Russian drones that entered Polish airspace en route to Ukraine.

September 14, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

Trump called on all NATO countries to boycott Russian oil and to impose tariffs on Russia and China.

Trump's thought on this, as with so much else, are based on his business experience.  A country willing to sustain the loss rates that Russia is, isn't going to be cowed by the loss of oil sales.

Domestic Use of the Armed Forces

And then there's this ongoing stupidity:

National Guard deploying to Memphis next, Trump says

September 16, 2025

Israel in Gaza

Israel had launched a new ground offensive apparently to take Gaza City.

Domestic Use of the Armed Forces

Trump has signed an order to deploy National Guardsmen to Memphis.

United States v. Drug Cartels

The US sank a second Venezuelan civilian boat yesterday.

September 23, 2025

Middle East War

A wave of countries has recognized a Palestinian state as the US influence over the globe has decreased under the Trump administration and as support for Israel has diminished due to the ongoing situation in Gaza.

Palestinian statehood was already recognized by the majority of the globe's nations, but now over half of Europe's nations do and only the US and Panama do not in the Americas.

September 24, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

Hmmm. . . while I'm grateful that Trump is suddenly supporting Ukraine, sort of, why the change in view?

Chances are high that Trump thinks his yapping achieves something.  Now, he probably suspects, Vlad Putin will be shaking in his boots.

He won't be.

September 26, 2025

Israel v. Hamas

Donald Trump claims that he won't allow Israel to annex more of the West Bank.  

Said Mahmoud Abbas, whose party governs the West Bank, expressly rejected the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and stated that Hamas needs to turn its weapons over to the Palestinian Authority, which is very rapidly achieving recognition as the Palestinian sovereign.

United States goings ons

Secretary of Defense Hegseth ordered all flag rank officer to report to him next week, an extraordinary move.  No reason has been given for it.

October 2, 2025

Israel v. Hamas

Israel ordered all remaining Palestinians to leave Gaza City  and that anyone who stayed would be considered a militant supporter and face the “full force” of Israel’s latest offensive.

This is a war crime.

October 3, 2025

United States v. drug cartels

Trump designated drug cartels as unlawful combatants in what is in fact an unlawful use of U.S. military power.

October 6, 2025

United States goings ons

Donald Trump has deployed units of the California National Guard into Oregon illegally.

update:

The judge which earlier ruled that the Oregon National  Guard could not be deployed for this purpose has extended the order to California and Texas National Guardsmen as well.

October 12, 2025

Israel v. Hamas

A Trump Administration brokered ceasefire which is designed to stop the fighting, secure the release of hostages, and lead to an eventual new Gazan (Palestinian Authority) government seems to be holdings.  Gazans are returning to their wrecked homes.

United States goings ons

While the rulings are interlocutory in nature, the Federal Court and Federal Appeals Court with jurisdiction in Illinois have blocked the illegal deployment of National Guardsmen in the state.

October 14, 2025

Gaza

Hamas is back in the streets in Gaza and killed at least 33 people for what it terms crime.

October 17, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

Senile real estate developer Donald Trump will be meeting with Vlad Putin in Hungary.

The illegitimate Second Trump Administration pulled tomahawk missiles it had previously promised to Ukraine back.

Ukrainian President Zelensky will meet with senile real estate developer today.

Gaza

The senile real estate developer threated Hamas with death if violence continues inside of Gaza.

United States v. Drug Cartels

US Southern Command’s top officer to step down after a year on the job

No reason was given, but it's likely that his conscience wouldn't allow for what is going on in that command.

Last edition:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2025. Part 6. The Don't Know Much About History Edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2025, Alaska, Diplomacy, Donald Trump, Russia, Russo Ukrainian War, Satire, Treaty of Portsmouth, Ukraine, United States, Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Zelinsky, War, Wars and rumors of wars, Yeoman's Fifth Law of History

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About once a year I have a fit because Chrysler and Ford quit offering a manual transmission option.  I become unrealistic about it.

I know that neither one is going to restore manuals.  Frankly, trucks are meant now to be driving in cities, not on farms and ranches, and therefore they're designed for city drivers.  Basically, if a 13 year old girly girl can't drive it, they aren't going to make it.

And I also know the "but modern manual transmissions. . . " argument.

This video really addresses that.