The best posts of the week of October 26, 2025.
Last edition:
Nuclear weapons should not be entrusted to anyone pleased by Trump’s Gilded Age Brothel school of interior design.
George F. Will.
The Jewish Resistance Movement sabotaged British railways in Palestine.
Twenty-one German bankers were arrested for war crimes.
Last edition:
.jpg)
On Friday, this blog tries to post something about farming, but it often lets everyone down by failing to do so, posting instead on various other inanities, such as a legislative committee passing a goofball ignorant bill on chemtrails.
Och!
Anyhow, we've been watching the news as first soybean farmers, and then later cattle farmers, have come on the news and stated, effectively, "we didn't think leopards would eat our face!" after Donald Trump took the tariff club and beat them upside the head and then decided that the Golden Arches could serve up Big Mac's with carne molida rather than ground beef.
What a bunch of amadán breallach. Oh well, it's hard to feel sorry for them. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Put that in your Happy Meal, bucko.
But this thread isn't on that.
Rather its on this.
We admire farmers and ranchers, as is rather obvious. It's our true vocation, even if an unfulfilled one. And we are familiar with actual farming, not the Green Acres/Hallmark/Homesteading type of agriculture.
But we're also agrarians.
Anyhow, I can't help but note this, even though its rude.
The spokesmen for soybean farmers have, at least on some occasions, been enormously fat.
That's a bad look. They're huge. And they're not huge in the way that some large people are who are pretty fit, and I've known more than a few. Indeed, I've known some outdoor employed people, both blue collar and in the sciences, who were really big, but quite fit. You could tell that what was at work with them was genetics. But many of these farmers, or at least the snipped I've seen, are just flat out fat.
This isn't the case with working ranchers.
I guess that shows us the extent to which mechanized farming has become, well, mechanized. At least one of these great big farmers has been interviewed in his farm machinery as he and it are working in his fields. And that's just not conducive to living well. Ranching is still a pretty physically active line of work.
With these guys, I suspect, but of course don't know, that they're still consuming a farm diet that developed prior to the 1980s. Say, perhaps, before World War Two. Big breakfast, followed by heavy activity, big lunch, followed by heavy activity, and a lighter dinner. . .sometimes followed by heavy activity. Now, however, you can omit the heavy activity.
Which gets us back to, I guess, the state of the world in general. Our technology is, frankly, killing us. We really weren't meant to live that way, or much of the way our technological world is having us live.
And, as a minor fwiw, you really can't come on to television seeking sympathies for farmers if you look like, to use an analogy, a fat cat. You guys have obviously been eating well. Yes, that really shouldn't matter, and its not a moral failing, but it doesn't look good in the presentation.
Billy Mitchell's defense was considering subpoenaing Calvin Coolidge.
The new Ajax was out:
Last edition:
King Juan Carlos I of Spain became acting head of state of the country after Franco conceded he was too ill to govern.
Last edition:
The Sheridan Press reported that the Nationalist Army, whom they reported as "regulars", were being rushed to Mongolia to fight the Communists.
That was correct. The U.S. was aiding in that effort through air lifting.
A local brewer that no longer exists advertised in the issue:
Sigh. . .
So, if you've been distracted or are just sick of reading stories about the toddler in the White House, here's what this is about:
The BBC article discounts Trump's ability to get this thing built, but that was penned before Trump showed that he'll just ignore the law in this area, as with everything else.
The United States needs a triumphal arch about as much as it needs to build its own version fo the Brandenburg Gate, which we should have blown to bit at the end of World War Two. At least its not as butt ugly as McCreery's gigantic garden shed that will be a temporary "ballroom" attached to the White House. That will get partially constructed and then ripped down, to be followed soon after by:
Did you work on illegal White House construction projects? You were likely exposed to asbestos and should sue the ass of off Donald Trump, call . . .
Anyhow, Triumphal Arches date back at least to the Romans, and they're particularly associated with them. The gigantic one in Paris, the Arch de Triomphe, we can blame on Napoleon whom, we should remember was deposed by a coalition of non wacky powers in the 19th Century and sent to die on Elba, where he was likely poisoned.
Triumphal Arches have been emulated ever since the Romans built them, and they appear in many countries. They are particularly associated with autocratic powers, which suffer from knowing they aren't worthy and therefore try to monument themselves into worthiness, but there are some in democratic states including in the U.S.
There's probably a smaller chance that construction gets started on this before Trump leaves office or collapse in his Happy Meal while babbling, but again, getting it rolling wouldn't be too surprising. Keeping it up? That's another matter.
I give the White House Garden Shed about an 80% chance of being torn down. If an arch goes up, I'd give it about a 40% chance.
Donald Trump attempted to steal the 2020 Presidential Election and failed. Having won the 2024 election, he's now working on stealing the 2026 mid terms.
The 2026 election will be the critical one. Republicans are going to try to use everything they can think of, legitimately, nad illegitimately, to control the outcome of the 2026 midterms. If they fail, they'll refuse to accept the results.
The 2026 election may well prove to be the election that breaks the republic.
The press noted the outbreak of a civil war in China. . . which in fact had been going on for a couple of decades, having broken out in August, 1927.
Free speech didn't work as a defense for Bily Mitchell.
In what deluded headline writer's mind is Mellon a "Wyoming Billionaire"?
Trump’s Argentine beef move causes ‘great concern, some panic’
.webp)
I've posted a fair amount on this story.
Lex Anteinternet: An East Wing Post Mortem.: Comparative air photos posted by CBS News. Put up under commentary and fair use exception. I've never seen the East Wing of the White ...
One of my old friends, whose become a hardcore right wing populist, while also interestingly being a hardcore corner crossing advocate (the two are in fact mutually exclusive), posted this on his Facebook feed:
The President, and "your President" decides to renovate the Whitehouse, with donations and on his own dime mind you, and he is “Destroying Democracy?” Some of your hypocrisy cancels your outrage. I’m so sick of this crap. It’s just another reminder that the other side has nothing to offer Americans other that staged outrage over bull. TDS much??
Some on the far right have completely swallowed that this is "staged outrage". The irony is that the exact same people were outraged about everything that Joe Biden did, and Barack Obama did. Some of that outrage was because they were told to be.
And here's the next thing. The ballroom is probably not going to be completed before Trump leaves office. Frankly, as the matter is now in litigation, there's going to be some delay. If a judge is really upset, which is unlikely due to the way courts work, there's precedent for returning the structure ot the status quo ante before anything goes forward, which would in and of itself likely take years.
That's unlikely of course, but there's going to be a district court ruling and then an appeals court ruling. All that will take six months on a project that would normally take several years to complete.
But that's not the point.
The next President, unless its J. D. Vance, is going to take this down, it it gets built If its a Republican like Thomas Massie it'll gleefully be torn down. If its a Democrat, it's also coming down.
Let's make it clear.
The ballroom, if its built, or however much of it that's built, will be taken down and erased from the public memory.
At that point in time, will those who support Trump in whatever he does state: The President, and "your President" decides to renovate the Whitehouse, with donations and on his own dime mind you, and he is “Destroying Democracy?”
Not hardly, even if no public funds are then used. They'll be outraged about how its "destroying" the legacy of a "great" president.
So why does this bother me?
Well in part because I'm an agrarian and this entire project is an insult to agrarians.
Ballrooms are the high school basketball courts of the super wealthy A place where the extremely wealthy can meet and mingle and do those things Trump noted, have drinks in the foyer, etc. The kind of place where you can talk shop and meet with the rich and powerful, and heads of state. Maybe have the Saudi king over, or rub elbows with guests like Prince William. . . or maybe Harry and Jeff Epstein. It's a public building, no matter whose tribute is used to pay for it, but you can't book your wedding reception of bar mitzvah reception there.
Because you are a peasant.
The entire concept of a massive ornate public building like this is that you peons will love it because you love to bask in the glory of your benighted leaders. And those benighted leaders, having been born into wealth, really believe that. You love them as they love themselves, and you are happy to serve the glorious benighted.
That's the antithesis of the American concept.
Here's what the White House grounds should return to, and I'm not joking.
And in fact, for the most part, it should be.
Sometime last week I was somehow the recipient of a real estate brochure entitled "Land".
I didn't get around to looking at it until today, even though I knew what it was going to be. Agricultural land turned into the playgrounds of the rich.
That should end. People who hold agricultural ground, or even large blocks of ground, should have to make their livings from it and nothing else. The wealthy holding such ground hurts those who would make a living in this simple manner.
We live in a new Gilded Age. That age gave rise to the Progressive movement and swept into office people like Theodore Roosevelt. Something like that needs to happen again.
Yes, I'm outraged over the East Wing coming down for a ballroom, and the very concept of a ballroom outrages me. I'm outraged that common people have fallen for outright lies and believe everything Donald Trump tells them. I'm outraged that the extremely wealthy are running the show on everything while, at the same time, our Gilded masters tell us to hate the poorest of the poor. I'm outraged that Congress will not do its job. I'm outraged that our military is being ordered to murder people in the Caribbean. And I"m outraged that our local politicians tell us to support this crap when they do so, in at least 2/3s of the instances, as it keeps them in their elected jobs.
Billy Mitchell questioned the Army's jurisdiction to try him.
The Casper paper ran Out Our Way.
Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Today -100: October 28, 1925: What sort of monster...: Since the French Cabinet can’t force Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux to resign when he rejects a capital levy, the whole Cabinet resigns i...
The age 25 year thing on marriage permission is really interesting. That's surprisingly high.
Last edition:
I suppose this film should not technically be in this category, as it takes place in contemporary times. However, it fits into the Doomsday Thriller category of movie, and its in good company with some others we should touch on. Such filmes would include Fail Safe, Dr. Strangelove, On The Beach, The Bedford Incident, and War Games.
This movie, quite frankly, maybe the very best of them, although Dr. Strangelove would certainly give it a run for that.
Using a technique used in the recent movie Dunkirk, this film has a series of timelines all of which center around the same thing. An inbound intercontinental missile, launched somewhere in the Pacific, has been detected and there's a mere 20 minutes to address the situation. The launch was undetected, so its unclear who sent the single missile on its way. At first it's assumed that its probably a North Korean test and will drop in the Pacific, but soon its clear that it is not.
The timeline involves an anti ballistic missile unit attempting to shoot the missle down, the senior leaders of the military attempting to figure out what is going on and how to deal with it, and the President of the United States, at a public relations event, struggling to determine how, if at all, the country should react to a missle that seems likely to hit U.S. soil.
It's very well done and frankly probably a lot more realistic than people may wish to admit. Cell phone discipline breaks down nearly immediately, which on the cusp of a nuclear disaster, it likely would. The individual reactions, from stoic to distraught, are likely fairly accurate too. All in all, I can't find anything to criticize about this film, although government officials have, most particularly the U.S. Military which insists that in this scenario it'd likely have a 100% chance of shooting the inbound missile down.
Uh huh.
Which leaves this film a very disturbing one.
