The scientific Harriman Alaska Expedition left Seattle for the coast of Alaska.
Last prior edition:
Monday, May 31, 1999
Sunday, May 30, 1999
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Monday, May 17, 1999
Thursday, May 18, 1899. Republic of Zamboanga established
The Republic of Republic of Zamboanga was established in the Philippines. It quickly devolved into being an American protectorate. General Vicente Álvarez, who lead its establishment, fell due to intrigue with the American forces followed by the fall of the remaining Spanish fort.
On the same day, the US took control of Jolo.
Last prior edition:
Wednesday, May 10, 1899. Song and Dance.
1890s, 1899, Dancing, Education, Movies, Music, Nebraska (Omaha), Omaha Nebraska, Personalities, Texas
Monday, May 10, 1999
Wednesday, May 10, 1899. Song and Dance.
Fred Astaire was born in Omaha, Nebraska as Frederick Austerlitz
Texas State University was founded.
Last prior edition:
Sunday, May 7, 1899. Aguinaldo moves
Friday, May 7, 1999
Sunday, May 7, 1899. Aguinaldo moves
Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy, President of the Philippine First Republic which was at war, or from the American prospective, an agent in insurrection against the successor to Spain, the United States, moved his Seat of Government from San Isidro, Nueva Ecija to Angeles, Pampanga as Philippine battefield fortunes were fading.
Last prior edition:
Wednesday, May 5, 1899. The station at Khilkovo.
Wednesday, May 5, 1999
Wednesday, May 5, 1899. The station at Khilkovo.
I enclose a photo I took at the station at Khilkovo-- you will recognize all but Miss Morphew and Mrs. Hansen and you can distinguish them by Mrs. Hansen's fur cape.
Elanor Pray.
We discussed Mrs. Pray yesterday, but here too there's a warning for us moderns. Russian society of 1899 was blisteringly ignorant. That ignorance would help fuel two revolutions, the second successful, and the rise of Communism, through its adoption by populists.
A warning on populist extremism to us all.
Last prior edition:
Thursday, May 4, 1899. The Battle of Santo Tomas and the remarkable Elanor Pray.
1890s, 1899, 1930, 1930s, China, Iowa National Guard, Kansas National Guard, Montana National Guard, Nebraska National Guard, Philippine Insurrection, Philippines, Russia, Vladivostok Russia, World War Two
Tuesday, May 4, 1999
Thursday, May 4, 1899. The Battle of Santo Tomas and the remarkable Elanor Pray.
The 1st Nebraska advancing during the Battle of Santo Tomas
The Battle of Santo Tomas was found in this day at Santo Tomas, Pampanga. The battle resulted in the complete route of the large Filipino force, its second defeat in recent days, and the wounding of General Antonio Luna, a primary Filipino commander.
Like many battles of the Philippine Insurrection, the battle was fought, on the American side, by state volunteers, who were, for all intents and purposes, National Guardsmen. In this case, the US forces consisted of the 20th Kansas, the 1st Montana, 1st Nebraska and 51st Iowa.
Elanor Pray, an American from Maine who was living in Vladavostock where her husband was posted to the "American store" sent a letter with photographs of some of the local scenes and her observations of them.
I think you will be interested in the photo of our premises here even if it does have to be curved to make the thing come together. Fred took it from the roof of the new P[ost] O[ffice] and the building half completed in front of us belongs also to the P.O."
Little known in the US, Pray's heavily photographed letters have made her well known in Russia, as her long residence there, 1894 to 1930, meant that she's chronicled, and preserved, an entire epic in Russia's history which would otherwise have seen much lost. She apparently liked the region, as she stayed on after the death of her husband in 1923 and only left in 1930 when her employer closed its facility in the area, which was also experiencing hardening Stalinist repression.
From Vladivostok she moved to China and was interned in World War Two by the Japanese, becoming part of a 1943 prisoner exchange which resulted in her return to the US. She smuggled her papers out in the process. She died in 1954 at age 85.
Manuel won the Kentucky Derby.
Last prior edition:
Monday, May 1, 1899. Prisoners of the Philippine Republic.
Friday, April 30, 1999
Monday, May 1, 1899. Prisoners of the Philippine Republic.
USS Yorktown.
Admiral George Dewey reported that ten officers and crewmen of the USS Yorktown were taken prisoner by the Philippine Republic, exactly one year after the U.S. Navy's defeat of the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay.
Adm. Dewey.
Last prior edition:
Wednesday, April 28, 1899. Discussions in the Philippines.
Monday, April 26, 1999
Tuesday, April 27, 1899. The Battle of Calumpit
The Battle of Calumpit (Filipino: Labanan sa Quingua), alternately known as the Battles of Bagbag and Pampanga Rivers) concluded with U.S. forces under Arthur MacArthur Jr. combating Filipino forces under General Antonio Luna. U.S. forces were comprised completely of state militia units, essentially the equivalent of today's National Guard, somewhat, those being the 20th Kansas Volunteers, the Utah Volunteer Light Artillery, the1st Montana Volunteers, the1st Nebraska Volunteers and the 51st Iowa Volunteers. All were probably mustered to fight against the Spanish in Cuba, and not the Filipino's in their native land.
U.S. forces prevailed with Medals of Honor, under the original standards, going to Colonel Frederick Funston, Private (later First Lieutenant) William B. Trembley, and Private Edward White.
The Filipinos, interestingly enough, grossly over reported American losses.
A terrible tornado struck:
Portrait shows event described in Eleanor Pray's letter of April 27, 1899:
"Yesterday morning I asked Mademoiselle [Lindholm family governess] to go to the bazaar with me to take some photos, and we took Dou Kee with us. I hired a small Korean to stand in front of a stall to be photographed. The Chinese got out like lightning for they say a camera has the evil eye. The Korean wanted also to run away when he found what was up, but the Chinese were quite willing the evil eye should be cast on him so they kept pushing him back and there he stood half scared to death. In a second after I pressed the button, there were Chinese around us ten deep all clamoring to see the picture. When the small Korean found he wasn't killed, and got five kopecks for pay, he was quite in another frame of mind." Another letter, dated May 4, 1899, also mentions this event: "The group of Koreans I took near the Bazaar. They thought I was going to shoot them and the one in the edge of the picture was clearing out for his life but couldn't resist looking back to see what happened to his friends. Before that old man could get up the deed was done and I'll warrant the whole crowd cursed me by all their gods."
A statute of Grant was unveiled in Philadelphia.
Friday, January 1, 1999
Lex Anteinternet?
The Consolidated Royalty Building, where I work, back when it was new.
What the heck is this blog about?
The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?
Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book I've been pondering. And part of it is just because I'm curious. Hopefully it'll generate enough minor interest so that anyone who stops by might find something of interest, once it begins to develop a bit.
Wednesday, December 31, 1969
Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump. Ignoramus Watch Part 3. The Quack Edition.
BASH: Is this measles outbreak a consequence of the administration undermining support for vaccines?
DR OZ: I don't believe so. Secretary Kennedy has been advocating for measles vaccines
BASH: Oh, come on
From a CNN Interview of Mehmet Oz, a prime example of the Oprah Effect.1
In fairness to Dr. Oz, who in fairness should not be a government official, he does want people to get the measles vaccine.
Also in fairness, the dissing of vaccines isn't really a Trump thing in and of itself, but he gave it some boosted unneeded assistance by taking the political step of promising Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. a job as the HHS Secretary if he'd drop out of the last Presidential race. Kennedy is a quack, and an opponent of vaccines in varying degrees (it seems to change day by day). The rise of this movement, however, started with people like Jenny McCarthy who sadly has a son with autism. McCarthy herself was a Playboy model and her only real expertise is in showing her naked visage, something that really doesn't qualify a person for anything serious, and in fact may achieve much the opposite.
Oh, and by the way, Jenny McCarthy appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show multiple times in the 2000s to discuss her erroneous theories on autism and vaccines, and to promote a book she wrote.
Much of this story has to do with the inability to understand the difference between present conditions and past ones. People tend to assume that negative developments in a population mean a negative present condition. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they also represent a positive one. I'll give a personal example.
In 1982 I had pneumonia while at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. I was extremely ill, literally on death's door.
Before the advent of antibiotics the fatality rates for bacterial pneumonia were between 60% and 70%.
Not good.
Now, the survivability rate is pretty good.
I've had a colon surgery for a developing condition that would have killed me even thirty years ago.
The point? Well, if I go on to develop Alzheimer's, which I pray I do not, it'll mostly be because I didn't die at age 19 of pneumonia.
Also, fwiw, Meet The Press this weekend had a physician on who noted that diseases we can now vaccinate for are associated with cancer, which is a developing field of medicine. I.e., you get some disease that's not big deal when young, and then you get cancer when older. You don't want cancer.
A fellow I know who suffered a heart attack, and who was otherwise very healthy, may have developed his heart condition this way as well.
Get vaccinated.
March 10, 2026
The worst cabinet in American history
And it's not even close.
March 15, 2026
The Trump Interregnum is threatening to pull broadcasting licenses of those who do not give a happy spin to the war against Iran.
March 21, 2026
Waging a war against American airports must be easier than waging a war against a real country that fights back:
Footnotes:
1. The Oprah Effect is so named here to explain the phenomenon of Oprah Winfrey putting some flaming bogosity on to her popular daytime television show and thereby having millions of people give it credence. There are a fair number of examples, including the rise of Dr. Oz.
Related Threads
Doug Wilson, the Calvinist preacher who appeared in Pete Hegseth's weekly Pentagon prayer meeting, says that in his preferred Christian nation, anything that Protestants consider to be a "public displays of idolatry" would be banned, including Catholic parades.
Labels: Apostolic Christianity, Catholic, New Apostolic Reformation, Pete Hegseth, Protestant, religion, Sunday Morning Scene, United States and Israel v. Iran
Last edition:
Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump. Ignoramus Watch Part 2. The War is a Racket edition.
Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 5. Trump's forever war. King Donald's War, Part 1.
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.
We shall not enter into any of the abstruse definitions of War used by publicists. We shall keep to the element of the thing itself, to a duel. War is nothing but a duel on an extensive scale. If we would conceive as a unit the countless number of duels which make up a War, we shall do so best by supposing to ourselves two wrestlers. Each strives by physical force to compel the other to submit to his will: each endeavours to throw his adversary, and thus render him incapable of further resistance.
Carl von Clausewitz
The irony is that Trump could make a plausible case that this war is allowable under the Authorization to Use Military Force George W. Bush received in 2001. But symbolically that would mean Trump is continuing Bush’s “forever war.”
Regardless, Republicans aren’t just under a legal clock to get this thing over with, but a political one, too. Polling shows Americans, including many Republicans, have no thirst for a long conflict, which makes sense given that they were not asked to prepare for this war. Hence, the insistence that this war will be short and tidy.
The problem is that Iran knows this. That’s why they don’t have to win, they just have to ride out the bombings until the public or Trump loses patience with this very real war.
Jonah Goldberg, Republicans aren’t willing to call war in Iran what it is.
But they were very strongly involved and all of the people that died through the roadside bombs died and are right now walking around with no legs, no arms. A face that’s been so badly damaged.
Donald Trump, alleged commander in chief.
Unless otherwise noted, every item in this updated thread is on Mad King Donny's war on Iran. Or not a war if you ask Sycophant Mike Johnson, Toady of the House.
March 12, 2026
New Hampshire National Guard’s 157th Air Refueling Wing in connection with the war with Iran.
Up to 17 ships have been hit by the Iranians in the Gulf of Hormuz.
Iran hit refinery targets in Oman.
The first week of Trump's war cost the $11.3 B.
$11.3B and they can still hit ships.
The US is releasing 172M bbls of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Oil opened today at $90.75.
And, not only is the war nowhere near ending, Iran is dictating terms to the United States and Israel, those being acknowledging Iran's "legitimate rights" are acknowledged, compensation for damages and strong international guarantees to prevent future attacks.
Iran would not have made those if it was anywhere near "surrendering" in any form. Indeed, the last item strongly suggests that they've coordinated with China and Russia who would probably back that demand. If the US accepts any variant of this, we're surrendering, but given that the war is a unilateral action by demented Donald Trump, and that the GOP will start panicking soon about this still going on in November, of which there's an excellent chance it will be, and prices are going to skyrocket enormously, and that his mind wonders, there's a pretty good chance he'll do it and declare victory, which nobody except the most deluded MAGA will believe.
This has gotten next to no press and right now, the concept of the U.S. surrendering to Iran seems absurd, but Donald Trump surrendered to the Taliban in the Afghan War and is simply not a very intelligent man. As casualties mount and inflation ramps up, he'll look like a failure, which of course, he largely is. Because of that, he'll grow anxious. I don't put it past him at all to agree to some version of this, if not this.
Cont:
Iran's Supreme Leader issued a statement vowing to avenge those killed in the first strikes and to keep hitting other states.
So, the war isn't over. It's not close to over, and we have no idea how to win it.
March 13, 2026
Two acts of terrorism occurred yesterday.
A major Jewish synagogue was attacked by a U.S. citizen of Lebanese origin whose brother was killed last week in an Israeli raid there.
Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a former Virginia Army National Guardsman attacked a ROTC class at Old Dominion. He joined ISIL after his discharge from the Guard and had been previously convicted of plotting a terrorist attack. The class instructor was killed before the ROTC cadets killed Jolloh.
These attacks are fairly clearly "lone wolf" type attacks, not sleeper cell attacks. The probable result will be howling complaints by MAGA that every Muslim in the US needs to be deported.
I will note that the Muslim population in the country is really winning the stupid prize for playing the stupid game. They rallied to some degree to Trump as they were upset about Biden's support of Israel. Well, now Gaza, which was the source of all of that, has been utterly flattened, Israel is waging war in Lebanon, and the US is in Iran. This is one of those items like Wyoming conservatives and their support of the "health care" amendment to the Wyoming Constitution wondering if maybe they have the blood of aborted fetuses on their hands (they do). Muslims who supported Trump are partiallyr responsible for this.
Trump threatened the Iranian leadership yesterday, calling them in "deranged scumbags". That's real adult.
A KC135 went down over Iraq, killing the crew of four.
Figures in the administration are quietly backing away from claiming the war will result in regime change. If it doesn't, it will have achieved utterly nothing, but then, we don't really know what the war is supposed to be about in the first place.
March 14, 2026
Is JD Vance Rooting for the Iran War to Fail?
Whatever Vance is or is not rooting for, the price of oil, now at $97/bbl, is definitely going to go up as the US hit a major Iranian petroleum loading facility yesterday, a purely economic target. Going after Iranian petroleum infrastructure means the price rise will last for years, to at least some extent.
Indeed, riffing off of this, the satirical "The Onion" has Trump getting the Greenpeace award for making oil too expensive to use. There's some truth to that. Electric vehicles are starting to look pretty good as the world's petroleum supply gets systematically destroyed.
Indeed, somewhat related to that, we have this:
We not only aren't making money from seizing tankers, we're spending far more on them than the contents of the oil they contained.
This really should have been obvious, but it does not appear that there's anyone in the administration who understands the petroleum industry whatsoever.
Indeed, frankly, while Trump may be a businessman, the administration is amazingly dim on economics itself. This probably shouldn't be a surprise as Trump is merely a real estate developer operating on inherited wealth. M'eh.
None of Trumps economic plans are working out. We're losing jobs, businesses are not moving to the US like he claims, and we're about to get hit by inflation in a ramped up fashion. Folks who bizarrely feel that Trump is some sort of super genius should read this:
Those folks should read this:
I Was Born Wealthy, And Know Rich People Don’t Work Harder Than You I never saw exceptional “hard work” or “intelligence” among the members of the class I was born into.
The gravity of the current situation can hardly be overemphasized. Trump doesn't know what he's doing. As far as anyone can tell, this war was launched as he thought it would be easy. It's not turning out to be at all. There's no plan on how to end the war and we don't really have solid war aims. Pete Hegseth and his company have a radical Calvinist view of what they'd like to do with US power. Marco Rubio is probably chomping at the bits, in his too big shoes, hoping to invade Cuba. We're nowhere near the end of any of this, including what will be endless price rises to fuel a war most Americans did not want and do not want now.
Cont:
As if any more evidence was needed that Trump had utterly no idea whatsoever about what he was doing, we have this:
Last week Trump rudely dismissed a vague suggestion from the UK that it might send ships to the region as we didn't need the help of Allies when we'd already won the war.
Today, Trump is begging for the help of allies.
March 14, 2026, cont.
Edgar Paxon's depiction of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. More thought appears to have gone into the deployment of the 7th Cavalry in this July 1876 event than went into "what if the Iranian regime doesn't collapse when we attack" this month.
An editorial note.
When we started tracking Wars and Rumors of War as a series, the United States was not in a full blown war. Indeed, back in 2020, when the series started, the U.S. wasn't really in any major conflicts at all. That first entry is here:
Wars and Rumors of Wars
The first mention of the U.S. in the context of a war in that thread was in an entry on a prospective war with China over Taiwan, something that remains very much a possibility.
Now, the U.S. was to some degree at war, but in a minor way. We still had troops in Afghanistan although Trump had sealed the fate of that war by surrendering to the Taliban. And a U.S. military mission remained in Iraq and Syria, as they still do. Still, these missions did not meet the definition of war by any reasonable standard. The tread didn't really anticipate tracking anything major, let alone a major war involving the United States.
That first changed with Putin's invasion of Ukraine, bringing about the Russo Ukrainian War. That ongoing conflict remains a very serious one, one which a serious President would be aiding Ukraine to help bring about a Ukrainian victory.
We don't have a serious President.
We have King Donald, an octogenarian with dementia who admires Putin.
And now we have our own major war.
Given that, the time has come to sperate out the two big wars, Czar Vlad's war on Ukraine, and King Donald's war on Iran, into separate training threads. We should have done that when we started this entry, rather than try a Part 5 to the Wars and Rumors of War series for 2026. However. Every single entry here is on Kind Donald's War, so we'll run with this and make it a joint entry until something on the world stage gives us an entry for Part 6 that doesn't involve Iran, or Ukraine. The Russo Ukrainian War will also have a separate thread.
This also gives me a little more room to freely comment on both ongoing wars. I'll just note now that King Donald's War will stand as a monument to hubris for the ages. No plan to win it, not plan to get out, the Iranians were supposed to just quit.
Incredible.
Czar Vlad's war has a different set of lessons, one being that the Russian Army has always sucked. The Japanese defeated it in the Russo Japanese War, the Germans in World War One and darned near in World War Two. They never got over their own propaganda about winning the Second World War are now bogged down, and losing.
To paraphrase an older judge I heard the other day, well, if things look bad, at least we have a front row seat to the Apocalypse after all these years.
cont:
The U.S. has instructed Americans to leave Iraq after a second attack on the embassy there.
The Administration seems to have been caught flat footed all the way around. It didn't warn anyone, and it didn't bother to get the support of the American people. It seems to have thought things would be over by now.
Domestically, it seems pretty clear J. D. Vance let it leak that he wasn't in favor of the war. As the Heather Cox Richardson item below notes, this administrations leaks pretty severely anyway. But this is pretty remarkable.
Vance was ‘skeptical’ voice in White House on Iran strikes
White House officials revealed that the vice president made his opposition known in the leadup.
There's a fair amount of "this wasn't my idea" going on right now, and no wonder. A week into the war, there's no end in sight and, frankly, Iranian predications of oil hitting $200/bbl don't seem that far fetched. Terrorism is ramping up. Things aren't looking good.
March 16, 2026
King Donny was in fit mode over the weekend, threatening NATO if they don't help with the Straits of Hormuz and begging China for help.
Nobody is promising to send ships. Why would they? The US even asking is proof that this was wasn't thought out. What China would probably like to see if the US commit to keeping the straits open and tie up the U.S. Navy.
Iran rejected opening up a dialog with the United States and hit an oil target in the UAE.
Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is reportedly in Russia where he received surgery.
March 17, 2026
Headline from the NYT.
Joe Kent, a Top U.S. Counterterrorism Official, Resigns Over the Iran War
Mr. Kent is the first Trump administration official to quit in opposition to the conflict. He said pressure from Israel had pushed the president into war against Iran.
And with that, we'll close this edition.
March 19, 2025
Israel his Iranian gas fields yesterday.
The price of oil leaped up to $118/bbl yesterday as a result, but is now down to $96.59.
It's increasingly obvious that Trump has no idea whatsoever how to bring the war to a conclusion. I've seen one commentary from a respected journal now nothing that Iran will dictate the terms on how the war will end, which we already noted. This is going to get worse, followed by a humiliation for the United States.
The Administration appears set to go to Congress and ask for $200B to prosecute the war. I've now seen, for the first time, a suggestion that its time to reprise the protests of the late stage of the Vietnam War and have a protest march on Washington.
cont:
The price of natural gas in Europe has jumped 35% due to gas fields being hit by both sides.
The US is reportedly considering deploying troops to the north shore of the Straits of Hormuz as the US war effort can't get the straits out of the line of fire.
Last edition:
Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 4. Sumer and Elam.
Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Wyoming Legislature. The Return of Checkgate.
We already did our postmortem, but some things aren't going away.
Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Wyoming Legislature.: Well, it's over, thank goodness. And it turned out to be not nearly as bad as was feared, and it was feared to be pretty bad. That does...
CST headline:
Wyomingites call for lobbying investigation in response to ‘Checkgate’ controversy
From WyoFile:
Wyomingites call for lobbying investigation in response to ‘Checkgate’ controversy
Kessler I filed a complaint with the Wyoming Attorney General's office due to Bextel not being a registered lobbiest, maintaining that she was lobbying for a corporation. I don't know the facts of it but Bextel tends to have a deer in the headlights look on these matters and it'll be interesting to see how these things develop. Kessler is a longtime Wyoming conservation activist so this isn't hugely surprising, particularly given the context in which Bextel was there in opposition to a bill pertaining to land use in Teton County.
The other complaint was filed by Michelle St. Louis, and that is a surprise. It's a more wide ranging complaint. St. Louis is a "conservative" and I'd generally regard her as being on the Freedom Caucus end of things, which is why this is surprising.
St. Louis was recently sued by Reid Rasner in something like the third of his suits arguing that certain members of the GOP engaged in a whisper campaign against him during the last election.
U.S. House Candidate Reid Rasner Sues Three More People For Defamation
St. Louis, who is pretty feisty, didn't appear intimidated by the lawsuit at all.
It'll be interesting to see what the AG's office does with these. Bextel resorted to the typical "the radical left Democrats are picking on me" bullshit.
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