Sunday, January 25, 2015
Monday, January 25, 1915. The telephone menace spreads.
Lightly armed rebels following John Chilembwe were defeated by the Kings African Rifles.
The Ottomans advanced on Qantara on the Sinai.
Alexander Graham Bell, in New York City, called Thomas A. Watson, in San Francisco, in the first US long distance telephone call.
The German Navy sustained its first Zeppelin loss when an ice up airship went down over the Baltic after bombing Libau, Russia. The Imperial Russian Navy captured the crew.
The United States Supreme Court determined a pardon is only valid if the person it is the subject of accepts it.
Last edition:
Sunday, January 24, 1915. The Battle of Dogger Bank.
Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Unidentified, Denver Colorado
Churches of the West: Unidentified, Denver Colorado:
Central Denver has a large number of traditional styled churches, of which this is one. Taken from my pickup truck window while stopped at an intersection, I was unable to identify it.
Central Denver has a large number of traditional styled churches, of which this is one. Taken from my pickup truck window while stopped at an intersection, I was unable to identify it.
Saturday, January 24, 2015
The return of a perennial bad idea, the transfer of Federal lands to the state.
Every few years Wyoming and the other western states get the idea that the Federal government ought to hand over the Federal domain to the states. The states don't propose to buy, please note, but just get it.
For those who aren't aware, starting really in the 1860s with the Homestead Act the Federal government started taking a different approach to vast tracks of land it acquired by the surrender, acquisition or simply the theft, of lands held by aboriginal title. Aboriginal title was that title held by the native inhabitants, i.e., the Indians. The Federal government recognized that title, as the Crown had also, but regarded it as a subservient, less perfect, form of title. Basically, it was inferior as people who lived a wild, aboriginal life, weren't regarded as civilized, and therefore they couldn't have a civilized title. The concept sort of was that they didn't really know what they had or how they had it, but they did have something.
From very early in the country's history it was the law that only the Federal government, heir to the rights of the Crown, could dispose of aboriginal title. States and territories couldn't do it. Up until the Homestead Act, the Federal government generally handed over most of the land it had to the new state upon statehood, but not all of it. The land it kept were "reservations", and not just of the "Indian Reservation" type. Washington D. C., which it acquired by donation, is one such Federal Reservation, or was, in spite of its ceaseless nonsensical whining about wanting to become the only city state in the country, thereby elevating a bad idea to statehood level.
Starting with the Homestead Act, however, the Federal government decided that it would keep much of the Federal domain and allow farmers to acquire it directly from the Federal government. This was done in order to encourage the settlement of lands otherwise regarded by most people as wastelands. The thesis was that by making the land free, or darned near free, people would be encouraged to give farming or livestock raising on it a go. The Homestead Act was followed by the Mining Law of 1872, which did the same for mining, with mining given a preferential place over everything else.
This was the system for most of the West until the Taylor Grazing Act when Congress recognized that the Dust Bowl conditions in the West then in play, combined with darned near full homesteading, was wrecking everything. So, it operated to prevent further homesteading entries and to lease the land to agricultural interests. A law that provided for leasing of oil and gas rights was already in existence. Finally, in the 1980s (I believe) the Mining Law of 1872 was altered to prevent further land patenting.
This system has worked really well. The Federal government has been a really good steward of the land and the fact that it belongs to all of us has meant that its been open to agriculture, hunting, fishing, and recreation.
So why would the state's have a problem with that?
Well, they do. Partly that's because the state's see the Federal domain as a source of income, and partially its because local interests always naively imagine the land ending up in their hands. People who depend on the Federal domain often have a problem sharing it, and they somehow imagine that if it went to the state, it'd go to them, and they'd own it.
And that's why this is a hideously bad idea.
In reality, allowing Wyoming to own the Federal domain would mean, sooner or later, that it would sell it into private hands. Those backing the bill in the legislature to support this concept deny that, but that is what would happen. Local pressure from local interest would scream and cry for this until hit happened. And then they'd be stunned when the land all went to big monied interest elsewhere.
For those who support agriculture, mineral extraction and recreation in this state, which is darned near everyone who lives here, there's no better way to mess that up than to support transferring the Federal domain to Wyoming. Wyoming is always selling little bits and pieces of what it does own, and sooner or later, it'd do that with all the land it owns. And at that point, locals would basically own nothing, and be able to go nowhere.
This idea is terrible. The legislature will almost surely pass it. Let's hope that Congress doesn't support it. If it were ever to get through, however, this would be the time. If that's the case, when the day comes when you can't go anywhere on what the Federal government once owned, remember the names of those who proposed this idea and ask them what they were thinking, unless of course you support the concept, and then you can ask yourself.
Postscript
This bill has now been amended such that the proposal is no longer to study the transfer of the lands, but rather transfer the management of them.
That's certainly a much more reasonable, sort of, prospective, but this too is a poor idea. After all, if the Federal government is paying for the management of the lands, why opt to take on the expense and burden of that task? The answer would no doubt be that there would be more local control, which is true, and which is why the state has chosen to administer such things that it can, such as the Occupational Health and Safety regulations. Nonetheless, taking on this burden here, which is well done by the Federal government, seem to be a rather poor idea.
Lex Anteinternet: A legal Gerontocracy?
Like a vampire from a movie, the topic I wrote about last legislative session here, is back again:
Lex Anteinternet: A legal Gerontocracy?: There's a bill pending in Wyoming's legislature which proposes to remove the mandatory retirement age for the judiciary, whic...
All my original comments apply to this still bad idea. Just like last year, the concept of changing the retirement age for judges from 70 years to 75 is still a bad idea.
When legislators backing this concept were interviewed by the Tribune this go around, one of them made the comment that "people are living longer", which is frequently the ill thought out excuse for such things. People are not, of course, living longer, they aren't dying as young, which isn't quite the same thing.
While it is good that people aren't dying as young, what the impact of that has been, in undeniable part, is that a lot more people are living with dementia than they used to. This is something that backers of this sort of thing have got to face. And this isn't an abstraction to me. My own mother, God bless her, is now well over 75, but she lives with this, and as an impact of that, so do I. Dementia strikes different people, who are afflicted with it, at different ages, and a lot of people are afflicted with it. By pushing the envelope on the ages of judges, we're pretty much guaranteeing that some will be so impacted while on the bench. When that happens, what do we do, impeach them? That's not a very dignified end of their service.
And, while I hesitate to say it, perhaps its time to note that at some point the Baby Boomer Generation has to loosen its grip on absolutely everything. Prior generations did, allowing them to step up to the plate, but as a generation they are remarkably reluctant to. Recent changes in Social Security eligibility, for example, have not impacted them. Our current crop of Presidential candidates are all Boomer retreads, or seem to be, again.
This is not to take a shot at the generation, but it's notable that now that they are the generation principally occupying the bench, a Legislature which probably is principally made up of the same generation, now thinks it'd be a good idea to have judges in eyesight of 80 years old, thereby effectively keeping their own generation on the bench. At some point, things have to go to the young, and even as it is right now that would mean that there'd be a lot of lawyers in this state in their 40s, which isn't exactly young, who'd never get the chance to serve.
This is a terrible idea. At age 70, a person ought to be able to go on to something else in life. If they still want to work, they can. If they don't, they shouldn't have to. But if they're in a public office in the judiciary, by that age they're well outside of the generational cohort they're judging, and it's time to turn it over to somebody younger.
To Our Glorious Dead. A commentary about an uniformed comment I hear fairly frequenlty
On our Some Gave All blog, I have posted an entry on the All Wars Memorial Toronto Ontario Old City Hall and York County Courthouse Memorial, Toronto Canada.
The reason I further note this here is best reflected by the commentary one of my teachers, an English teacher, made to the class back when my son had her in middle school, that comment being that Canada never has fought a war.
What a moronic comment.
This memorial, as the link above discusses, is in honor of the Canadians who lost their life in World War One (which the Canadians were in much longer than we were), World War Two (which the Canadians were in much longer than we were) and the Korean War. Just because Canada didn't fight in the Vietnam War doesn't mean it's never been in any wars. Not by a long shot.
Memorials like this one aren't unique to Toronto. I have to presume that the people who make such comments have never been to Canada, and haven't ever read any history either.
The changing interior of a city.
Churches of the West: Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity, Toronto Ontario
Every once in a while you'll see
something that really demonstrates how a town has changed over the
decades. This is one such scene.
This is an Anglican church in Toronto, and its an old one. Probably because I was seeking to take the photo of the church, you can't tell really how its surrounded on all sides, and I mean all with big tall buildings. It's right in the middle of them. An artifact of a less built up town.
From what my relatives tell me, Toronto has indeed changed a great deal. It was, at one time, a very English city, but no more. It's a huge city, and very vibrant. Things are being built all over, and the town has a very cosmopolitan international feel to it.
Sunday, January 24, 1915. The Battle of Dogger Bank.
The Royal Navy defeated the Imperial German Navy's Kaiserliche Marine in the North Sea, sinking the German armoured cruiser SMS Blücher with a loss of 792 sailors and disabling the German battleshp SMS Seyditz, with a loss of 159 men, in the Battle of Dogger Bank.
People like to claim that the German and British fleets basically did nothing during the Great War as to surface actions outside of the Battle of Jutland, but it simply isn't true. The Battle of Dogger Bank was a major action in which the Royal Navy bested the Germans.
The SMS Blücher sinking.
More realistically, the Germans were simply bested by the British routinely until prudence demanded that it stay in safe harbors as to surface vessels.
The Germans, it might be noted, used Zeppelins in the battle, but without much effect.
Rebel leader and Baptist minister John Chilembwe split up his forces, sending one group to the towns of Blantyre and Limbe in hopes of capturing weapons from stores owned by the African Lakes Company. The other group went to a plantation owned by the A. L. Bruce Estates, also for weapons.
On the same day, Chilembwe requested German aid, a naive assumption about German goals in the war.
Last edition:
Friday, January 23, 2015
Saturday, January 23, 1915. The Chilembwe Uprising.
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African Baptist minister John Chilembwe lead an uprising against British colonial rule in Nyasaland, Africa (now Malawi).
The Austo Hungarians commenced an offensive against the Russians in the Carpathians.
There were growing concerns, and predictions, about the US entering the Great War.
Interesting how those read. Henry Cabot Lodge was sure we'd get in the war, and was correct.
And industry was predicated to end social unrest.
It was Saturday. Judge went an age old theme:
Others went with war.
Last edition:
Friday, January 22, 1915. Similar strategies.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Friday, January 22, 1915. Similar strategies.
Cartoon from January 22, 1915.
French troops on Hartmannswillerkopf summit in Alsace surrendered while Allies cut off food and water to German defenders on Mora mountain in German Cameroon.
A train from Guadalajara, Mexico derailed and plunged into a canyon, killing resulting in the deaths of over 600 passengers.
Oddly enough, on the same day this train carrying Carranza's troops was photographed.
Last edition:
Friday, ,January 21, 1915 Kiwanis established.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Friday, ,January 21, 1915 Kiwanis established.
The nation's first Kawana's Club was founded in Detroit as the Supreme Lodge Benevolent Order Brothers.
French troops on the Hartmannswillerkopf summit surrendered after running out of ammunition and supplies.
Last edition:
Wednesday, January 20, 1915. Coast Guard and Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge established.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Lex Anteinternet: $40/barrel? The layoffs continue
Lex Anteinternet: $40/barrel?: Driven by Saudi Arabian efforts, the price of petroleum oil is falling through the floor. When I last checked, it was down under $70...Just recently it was announced that Schlumberger was engaging in substantial layoffs. Now the news comes that Halliburton is laying off 1,000 employees, and Baker Hughes, which Halliburton is buying, is laying off an additional 7,000.
Layoffs of this level are pretty hard to ignore, and at some point the slowdown becomes more than that, due to its own inertia.
Today In Wyoming's History: Joel Hurt – Sheepman - Mayor- Senator – Murderer
Today In Wyoming's History: Joel Hurt – Sheepman - Mayor- Senator – Murderer:
Joel Hurt – Sheepman - Mayor- Senator – Murderer
Note that the amount of the initial investment in the sheep ranch, $200,000, was truly a huge sum, if the effects of inflation areconsidered. Well into the millions in today's money.
This is telling in that we often get the idea that homestead was "free", which it wasn't. Even quite a few modest homesteads reflected years and years of savings being invested in a very small start up enterprise. But beyond that, there were large outfits like this, that absolutely enormous initial investments.
Joel Hurt – Sheepman - Mayor- Senator – Murderer
Note that the amount of the initial investment in the sheep ranch, $200,000, was truly a huge sum, if the effects of inflation areconsidered. Well into the millions in today's money.
This is telling in that we often get the idea that homestead was "free", which it wasn't. Even quite a few modest homesteads reflected years and years of savings being invested in a very small start up enterprise. But beyond that, there were large outfits like this, that absolutely enormous initial investments.
Wednesday, January 20, 1915. Coast Guard and Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge established.
Congress passed the Coast Guard Act, which established the United States Coast Guard by merging United States Life-Saving Service and the United States Revenue Cutter Service. Overall, the Coast Guard would come to absorb a large number of small maritime services.
It was modeled on the Navy, but part of the Department of the Treasury. The 1790 date in its seal is the date the United States Revenue Marine Service had been established.
For years it was part of the Department of the Treasury during peacetime, but as wars have become smaller its oddly been the case that the country thought it needed more than than the two original armed services. There are now a total of six, of which the Coast Guard is one. It's been transferred from the Treasury, where it really should have remained, to the Department of Homeland Security.
Bring back the War Department.
President Wilson established the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge in the State of Washington.
Last edition:
Tuesday, January 19, 1915. Air raid. Neon lights.
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