Sunday, July 20, 2025
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Lex Anteinternet: I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you.
I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you.
I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.
Flannery O'Connor
Saturday, July 12, 2025
Lex Anteinternet: Extension denial leaves Wyoming ranch owner a week...
Extension denial leaves Wyoming ranch owner a week to convince SCOTUS to hear corner crossing case
Extension denial leaves Wyoming ranch owner a week to convince SCOTUS to hear corner crossing case: Eshelman has until July 16 to state why the court should consider the corner-crossing conflict between public access to public land and private property rights.
Rancher owner?
Well, yes, he owns a ranch. But a working owner he is not. He's a pharmaceutical industry titan.
In a more just society, frankly, he wouldn't own the ranch at all. It'd be owned by those who actually derived a living from it.
Also of interest, Iron Bar Holdings, the petitioner, is represented by Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP of Denver, with Robert Reeves Anderson as counsel of record. The respondent is represented by a local Wyoming firm. I note this as there's no reason that the common attorney bullshit claim "I'm only doing my job" really ought to hold, for civil litigation. If you run into a Colorado attorney in Wyoming, ask them who they work for. if they work for this outfit, tell them to go home, we don't want them here.
For that matter, if you are a Colorado user of public lands, as they want to take part of what you own, there's no reason to accommodate them with a seat at the table, literally. "Want a cup of coffee sir? Drive to Texas. . . ."
At the trial court level, Iron Bar had been represented by Gregory Weisz, who is a Wyoming attorney. He's left private practice and is with the AG now. A lawyer with his firm took his place, but the case was well developed by then, and in the appeal stage, so they really had no choice.
So, what am I saying. Well, I'm saying that people who don't derive their income principally form a ranch, ought not to own it. And I'm saying that by representing carpetbaggers, you are a carpetbagger. The old lawyer bromides about serving the system are BS. Regular people, including other lawyers, don't have to excuse your choice of clients when you are taking on a plaintiff. It's not like being assigned a defendant.
Thursday, July 10, 2025
Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 96th edition. The Epstein Files.
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 96th edition. The Epstein Files.
“In brief, my lord, we both descried
(For then I stood by Henry’s side)
The Palmer mount, and outwards ride,
Upon the earl’s own favourite steed:
All sheathed he was in armour bright,
And much resembled that same knight,
Subdued by you in Cotswold fight:
Lord Angus wished him speed.”
The instant that Fitz-Eustace spoke,
A sudden light on Marmion broke:
“Ah! dastard fool, to reason lost!”
He muttered; “’Twas nor fay nor ghost
I met upon the moonlight wold,
But living man of earthly mould.
O dotage blind and gross!
Had I but fought as wont, one thrust
Had laid De Wilton in the dust,
My path no more to cross.
How stand we now?—he told his tale
To Douglas; and with some avail;
’Twas therefore gloomed his ruggéd brow.
Will Surrey dare to entertain,
’Gainst Marmion, charge disproved and vain?
Small risk of that, I trow.
Yet Clare’s sharp questions must I shun;
Must separate Constance from the nun—
Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
A Palmer too!—no wonder why
I felt rebuked beneath his eye:
I might have known there was but one
Whose look could quell Lord Marmion.”
Marmion, Sir Walter Scott.
The reason that late procurer Jeffrey Epstein remains in the news is that the Republicans made the "Epstein files" a big deal.
That's the only reason.
I don't believe that Trump had Epstein murdered. I don't believe the really bizarre conspiracy theory that the Clintons did either. Even at the time that was asserted, however, I thought that it made a lot more sense that Trump would have offed Epstein than the Clintons, but I don't believe that either happened.
Epstein and Trump knew each other, and that association (I don't know if Trump has any actual friends at all, I somewhat doubt it) was more than casual. Epstein claimed to know that Trump liked to screw the wives of Trump's "friends" and that he first had carnal knowledge of Melania aboard the Lolita Express. At least based on what is out there, Epstein never claimed that Trump dabbled with the underaged. Trump did claim that Epstein like women "on the younger side", which can mean a variety of things. Author Michael Wolff claimed that Epstein claimed he had photos of Trump with topless "young women" sitting on his lap, which again doesn't mean they were underaged.
There have been, however, some accusations, and that's what they are, accusations, that went beyond that. "Katie Johnson" claimed that she was raped by Trump in association with Epstein. Was she? How would we know, the suits were never advanced, and the allegations are so extreme that there's plenty of reason to question them.
And other women claimed they were abused by Trump, while teenagers, on Epstein's island.
But still, all of this may just prove what we already know. Trump can be proven to be a creep, but that doesn't mean he's a pedophile, if the women's claims are disregarded (which generally, we tend not to do with accusatrices).
Having said that, there's the smoke and fire matter. People related rumors about the Hefner mansion for years before the full truth of its horrors were told after his death. Hefner was a rapist, under the current definition, based on what one of his female house guests related to have witnesses in terms of compelled sex. James Brown was violent towards women there. Bill Cosby, who turned out to be a rapist, frequented it.
Can you really have an island dedicated to sexual trafficking and not descend into rape? Can you really circluate underaged girls and not have them compelled into sex?
During Biden's administration, the populist far right, which got ahead of Trump in its conspiracy theories, whipped itself into a frenzy with the belief that Democrats were a secret cabal of pedophiles, and that the Epstein Files would reveal a vast number of important Democrats who were involved . As soon as the files were released, we were told, the lid was going to be off this horrific discovery. Trumpite figures adopted releasing the Epstein files as one of the things they were going to do.
After the election, Pam Bondi did in fact release part of the FBI files on Epstein, which is seemingly now forgotten even by Bondi. She claimed she had an Epstein client list on her desk that she was reviewing, with the information set to be released.
Now the list is lost, or maybe never existed.
Hmmm. . .
Well, if a list existed, it's being hidden, and given the way the Trumpites approached this, there's real reason to wonder why. They cried for the information, it didn't get released if there was a list, and it should be. Is it lost?
If it is, how did that happen?
We're also told a list never existed, and it might not have. That would have been smart for Epstein, and Epstein was no dummy. How much of a list would he have needed?
Well, maybe some sort of list. Knowing the high rollers being supplied with teenage girls would, I suppose, perhaps be easy enough, but you'd think you'd write this stuff down for self protection if nothing else.
All of which fuels more conspiracy theories.
Chances are there was no client list. Epstein probably packed a list of perverts around in his head. Probably most of the girls he supplied were young, but not underaged, probably.
But now, we'll never really know.
What we do know is that somebody was lying. Bondi, for example, either had a list and "lost" it, or she never had one. Others who suggested there was all sorts of smoking gun material that would come to light, if they didn't lie, were in the neighborhood of lies.
But then, Trump has lied so often that people have become numb to it.
Gary Hart had to drop out of the 1988 Presidential election when an affair he engaged in, involving a boat called Monkey Business, came to light.
My, how our standards have fallen.
Last edition.
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 95th edition. Making us a more barbaric society.
Friday, July 4, 2025
Lex Anteinternet: A 2025 Independence Day reflection.
A 2025 Independence Day reflection.
Thursday, July 3, 2025
Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, July 3, 1945. Don't use the Bomb.
Tuesday, July 3, 1945. Don't use the Bomb.
The first draft of a letter by Manhattan Project scientists urging that the Atomic Bomb not be used was circulated. Hungarian physicist and biologist Leo Szilard was the scrivener.
This version was not sent, as a new one was worked on in order to secure additional signatures.
This is the second such example of such a letter, the other one from Robert Oppenheimer, that I've posted in recent days. Clearly something was really going on inside the Manhattan Project itself at this time, and what that was, was a debate on whether to use the bomb or not.
Frankly, the views expressed above comport with my own. Using the bomb was 1) a huge mistake, and 2) deeply immoral in how it was targeted.
It's interesting, however, that this debate broke out at this point.
That the atom could be split and that it could be done in such away that the massive release of energy would result in a huge blast had been known, albeit theoretically, for some time. The knowledge did not come about during the war itself, but before it.
The war, however, created an enormous imperative to work the physical problems of constructing a bomb out, in large part out of the fear the Axis would get there first.
The Western Allies, the Germans, and the Japanese all had atomic weaponry programs, although its typically forgotten that the Japanese were working on this as well. The German program was enormously feared.
The German program was also enormously hampered by Nazi racism, as it had the impact of causing Jewish scientists, such as the Hungarian Leo Szilard to flee for their lives. They weren't alone in this, however, as generally the highly educated class of men that were in the field of physics weren't really keen on fascism overall. Germany had some top flight scientists, of course, but many of the best minds in science in Europe had left or put themselves out of serious research work if they remained. Some of those who remained in Europe and were subject to the Germans somewhat doddled in their efforts in order to retard the advancement of the efforts.
Japan had a program, as noted, and it had some excellent physicists. Their problem here, however, was much like that of the Japanese war effort in chief. Japan was so isolated that it had nobody else to draw from.
In contrast, the US effort was nearly global in extent, as the US drew in all the great minds, in one way or another, who were not working for the Germans or Japanese, which was most of the great minds in the field.
At any rate, moral qualms about using the bomb didn't really start to emerge until very late in the war, and not really until after Germany had surrendered. Nearly everyone working on the Manhattan Project imagined it as producing a bomb to be used against Germany. Japan wasn't really considered.
And there's good reasons for that. For one thing, it was feared that Germany, not Japan, would produce a nuclear weapon and there was no doubt that Germany would use it if they did. Given that, producing a bomb, and using it first, had a certain element of logic to it. Destroy them, the logic was, before they can do that to us.
Working into that, it should be noted, was the decay in the resistance to the destructiveness of war that had started to set in during World War One. The US had gone to war, in part, over a moral reaction to the Germans sinking civilian ships. By World War Two there was no moral aversion to that at all and unrestricted submarine warfare was just considered part of war.
The Germans had also introduced terror bombing of cities during the Great War, engaging in it with Zeppelins. Long range artillery had shelled Paris in the same fashion. Between the wars it was largely assumed that cities would be targeted simply because they were cities, which turned out to be correct. The Germans had already engaged in this during the Spanish Civil War and would turn to during the Blitz, which the British would very rapidly reply with. By 1945 the US was firebombing Japanese cities with the logic it drove workers out of their homes, and crippled Japanese industry, which was correct, but deeply immoral.
By July 1945 there were really no more industrial targets left to bomb in Japan, although the bombing was ongoing. The only point of dropping an atomic bomb was to destroy cities, and the people within them.
That was obvious to the atomic scientists, but that had been obvious about using the bomb on Germany as well. Targeting would have largely been the same, and for the same purpose. Allied strategic bombing of Germany has actually halted before the German surrender, as there was no longer any point to it, although the concept the Allies had in mind would really have been to use the bomb earlier than the Spring of 1945. Indeed, had the bomb been available in very early 1945, there's real reason to doubt that the Allies would have used it on Germany, as Allied troops were on the ground and they were advancing.
Still, with all that in mind, there was a certain sense all along that Germany uniquely deserved to be subject to atomic bombs. Japan in this context was almost an after thought.
Everyone working on the bomb in the US was European culturally. To those of European culture the Germans were uniquely horrific, and to this day Nazi Germany is regarded as uniquely horrific. Many of those working on the Manhattan Project, moreover, were direct victims of the Nazis, with quite a few being both European and Jewish refugees. Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, by late 1944 people were well aware of what was going on in Nazi Germany and that the Germans were systematically murdering Jews.
The Japanese also were incredibly inhumane and horrific in their treatment of the populations they'd overrun, as well as of Allied prisoners of war. But the nature and extent of their barbarity really wasn't very well known. Indeed, much of it would not be until after the Second World War, at which time the information was suppressed for post war political reasons. At any rate, in July 1945, the scientists working on the Manhattan Project did not know of Japanese systematic horrors in China. Very few people did.
And the Japanese were scene, basically, as victims of their own culture, which was somewhat true. Japan had not been colonized by Europeans at all, making them the only nation in Asia to have that status. Therefore, European culture, and standards, had really not penetrated very much. Japan had adopted Western technology, but Western concepts of morality in war had not come in with it very much. To the extent that it did, it seemed to evaporate with the introduction of increasing authoritarianism in Japan after World War One.
But that wasn't really known to the scientific community.
It was, however, to the military community, which had been fighting the Japanese on the ground.
We'll discuss that in the context of the bomb in a later thread.
The point here is that by this time, many in the non military community, and some within it, who were aware that the Allies were about to produce an atomic bomb were now against using it.
And, indeed, it should never have been used.
Moscow radio announced that the body of Joseph Goebbels had been discovered in the courtyard of the Chancellery in Berlin.
Also in Berlin, the first U.S. troops arrived for occupation duty.
James F. Byrnes became United States Secretary of State.
The first civilian passenger car made in the United States in three years rolled off the assembly line of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit. The car was a 1946 Super DeLuxe Tudor sedan and was destined for Harry Truman.
Last edition:
Monday, July 2, 1945. Advances on Balikpapen.
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
War and moral decay. Was originally Lex Anteinternet: Monday, July 2, 1945. Advances on Balikpapen.
Monday, July 2, 1945. Advances on Balikpapen.
Tokyo's population was down to 200,000 people due to evacuations from the bombed city.
Australian troops took Balikpapan's oil facilities.
American operations conclude on the Ryukyus.
The submarine USS Barb fired rockets on Kaihyo Island near Sakhalin,the first instance of a submarine firing such weapons.
Mountbatten is ordered to launch Operation Zipper, the liberation of Malaya, in August.
The 1945 Sheikh Bashir Rebellion broke out in Burao and Erigavo in British Somaliland against the British.
"The American Farmer" was the cover story in Newsweek.
Lesson from Japan.
From Twitter: Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein · 2h I just returned from two weeks in Japan, and I have to be honest, it really opened my e...

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Lex Anteinternet: Hoarding bananas. : Hoarding bananas. This isn't really correct. Frankly, the other monkeys would take the hoarded ba...