Diesel the donkey now identifies as an elk. Diesel has been running wild for several years in Wyoming and doesn’t plan on giving up his position as the hired gun for his herd. Donkeys have been used by farmers and ranchers for years to protect their herds because donkeys are vicious fighters when it comes to predators like wild dogs, coyotes, and wolves.
The Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 explored the region of northwestern Wyoming that later became Yellowstone National Park in 1872. It was led by geologist Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden. The 1871 survey was not Hayden's first, but it was the first federally funded geological survey to explore and further document features in the region soon to become Yellowstone National Park, and played a prominent role in convincing the U.S. Congress to pass the legislation creating the park. In 1894, Nathaniel P. Langford, the first park superintendent and a member of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition which explored the park in 1870, wrote this about the Hayden expedition:
We trace the creation of the park from the Folsom-Cook expedition of 1869 to the Washburn expedition of 1870, and thence to the Hayden expedition (U. S. Geological Survey) of 1871, Not to one of these expeditions more than to another do we owe the legislation which set apart this "pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people"
— Nathaniel P. Langford
Ferdinand V. Hayden
Hayden Survey at Mirror Lake en route to East Fork of the Yellowstone River - August 24, 1871
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Geological_Survey_of_1871
In Wyoming, officials ready for battle against feds over land management
If finalized, it will designate 1.8 million acres of Wyoming as “areas of critical environmental concern,” which would severely restrict most mining, oil and gas development, and grazing.
Wyoming elected officials are gearing up for a fight with the Bureau of Land Management over millions of acres the federal agency wants to close off to most uses.
The bureau develops resource management plans for public lands across the country. These plans, according to the BLM, are meant to "keep public landscapes healthy and productive."
The development process includes public engagement and environmental impact statements under the National Environmental Policy Act.
In August, the BLM Rock Springs Field Office, which oversees approximately 3.6 million acres of land in south-central Wyoming, released a Draft Resource Management Plan revision for the area.
Wyoming Only
If finalized, it will designate 1.8 million acres of that area as “areas of critical environmental concern,” which would severely restrict most mining, oil and gas development, and grazing within that designation.
The plan has solicited stern criticism from Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon and a U.S. House amendment, which was tacked onto the Department of Interior’s appropriations bill. It will block the BLM from implementing the plan.
Wyoming legislative committee also passed a bill to be considered in the state’s legislative session in January. It asserts the state’s authority over land within its borders and appropriates $50 million for a legal fight.
“I think this sends a message that we’re getting locked and loaded to not get pushed around anymore by the big guys back in D.C.,” said Wyoming Sen. Bob Ide during the committee hearing on the bill.
As Gov. Gordon explained in a letter to BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning, the draft was developed over 12 years, which included multiple public meetings, input from state and local agencies, and millions of dollars in taxpayer money.
The bureau had four different alternative plans available to pursue, including one that changes little about the way the area is currently managed and others that placed limitations on various uses and development.
The bureau went with the option that has the most severe resource use restrictions, and the one that has little support in the state.
”Over a decade’s worth of contributions from local stakeholders, cooperators, counties, and state agencies are either falling on deaf ears or disingenuously being thrown by the wayside with this decision,” Gordon stated in his letter.
The plan would affect an area of the Cowboy State that hosts a range of industries, including oil and gas development, cattle ranching and mining, and it’s drawn considerable criticism from the state’s industry leaders and cattle ranchers.
In September, the BLM held an informational meeting in Rock Springs, Wyoming, which is in Sweetwater County, that drew 500 people. About 41,000 residents live in the county, which has nearly as much area as the entire state of Massachusetts. Half of those residents live in Rock Springs.
”This is one of the largest land grabs we've ever seen. The Rock Springs RMP threatens Wyoming’s recreation, grazing and energy industries,” Hageman said in a statement.
The Wyoming legislature has also joined in the fight against the plan.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/wyoming-officials-fight-blm-over-restrictive-management-plan-they-say
Teton County And Electric Buses: Setting Their Sights.
Jackson, Wyoming. It’s Wyoming’s Austin, except the billionaires have chased out the millionaires long ago. Teton County is a natural wonderland, particularly in the winter, where the well-heeled, and others, can enjoy some of America’s best skiing. As with Austin, Jackson is a haughty blue island in a vast red political sea, and as with Austin, Jackson’s residents are determined to be a shining beacon of wokeness.
From November to March, Jackson, and the surrounding Teton County is a deep freeze, with an average high temperature of 34.6° and an average low of 11.4°. It’s below freezing–much below–most of the time. Keep in mind it’s always windy in Wyoming, so the wind chill is virtually always far below zero. Notice from the chart above the average record low for those months was -40.8, and that’s not adding in the windchill. Jackson is no tropical paradise in October and April either. Keep those climate figures in mind.
Teton County operates a fleet of 31 buses, not only for locals, but largely for shuttling tourists to ski. For years, that fleet provided good service. The buses were reliable, easily repaired and parts were available. But according to Kevin Killough at Cowboy State Daily, the visionaries of Jackson wanted to change all that:
Teton County and the town of Jackson had set its sights on a low-emission transit system for the county.
The Southern Teton Area Rapid Transit (START) system, a joint operation between Jackson and Teton County, bought eight electric buses to complement its fleet of 31.
But none of the electric buses are running, and so the town’s transit system is relying on its diesel fleet.
Considering the blue political island of Jackson, this is unsurprising. It’s unsurprising because d/S/Cs make their own reality and try to force others to live in it, while spending public money on unicorn farts and fairy dust—like electric buses.
‘Moreover, governments’ politically-motivated reliance on electric vehicles like buses has been a disaster. This is a typical ‘green’ fiasco:
‘More than two dozen electric Proterra buses first unveiled by the city of Philadelphia in 2016 are already out of operation, according to a WHYY investigation.
The entire fleet of Proterra buses was removed from the roads by SEPTA, the city’s transit authority, in February 2020 due to both structural and logistical problems—the weight of the powerful battery was cracking the vehicles’ chassis, and the battery life was insufficient for the city’s bus routes.
The city paid $24 million for the 25 new Proterra buses, subsidized in part by a $2.6 million federal grant.’
Philadelphia knew the electric buses couldn’t provide the same service as its ICE buses, so they rigged the conditions:
Philadelphia placed the Proterra buses in areas where it thought they could succeed but quickly learned it was mistaken. Two pilot routes selected in South Philadelphia that were relatively short and flat compared with others in the city were too much for the electric buses.
‘Even those routes needed buses to pull around 100 miles each day, while the Proterras were averaging just 30 to 50 miles per charge,’ WHYY reporter Ryan Briggs wrote.
Proterra claimed its buses had a 329 mile range. Things were no better elsewhere:
Similar problems have been found in other cities that partnered with Proterra. Duluth, Minn., which, like Philadelphia, waited three years for its Proterra buses to be delivered, ultimately pulled its seven buses from service ‘because their braking systems were struggling on Duluth’s hills, and a software problem was causing them to roll back when accelerating uphill from a standstill,’ according to the Duluth Monitor.
Note that these locations all experience winter, though not nearly as cold as Jackson. With this well-known lack of performance background—Proterra’s problems have been widely publicized and well known for years—Jackson bought—you guessed it—eight Proterra buses. Or actually, American taxpayers paid for most of them.
Much, much more on the disaster that is electric buses here:
https://statelymcdanielmanor.wordpress.com/2023/09/29/teton-county-and-electric-buses-setting-their-sights/#more-51147
On This Date In History
On Sept 30, 1954, the USS Nautilus (USS 571), the world’s first nuclear submarine, is commissioned by the U.S. Navy.
The Nautilus was constructed under the direction of U.S. Navy Captain Hyman G. Rickover, a brilliant Russian-born engineer who joined the U.S. atomic program in 1946. In 1947, he was put in charge of the navy’s nuclear-propulsion program and began work on an atomic submarine. Regarded as a fanatic by his detractors, Rickover succeeded in developing and delivering the world’s first nuclear submarine years ahead of schedule. In 1952, the Nautilus‘ keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman, and on January 21, 1954, first lady Mamie Eisenhower broke a bottle of champagne across its bow as it was launched into the Thames River at Groton, Connecticut, from the Electric Boat Company. Commissioned on September 30, 1954, it first ran under nuclear power on the morning of January 17, 1955.
Much larger than the diesel-electric submarines that preceded it, the Nautilus stretched 319 feet and displaced 3,180 tons. It could remain submerged for almost unlimited periods because its atomic engine needed no air and only a very small quantity of nuclear fuel. The uranium-powered nuclear reactor produced steam that drove propulsion turbines, allowing the Nautilus to travel underwater at speeds in excess of 20 knots.
In its early years of service, the USS Nautilus broke numerous submarine travel records and in August 1958 accomplished the first voyage under the geographic North Pole. After a career spanning 25 years and almost 500,000 miles steamed, the Nautilus was decommissioned on March 3, 1980. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982, the world’s first nuclear submarine went on exhibit in 1986 as the Historic Ship Nautilus at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, Connecticut.
On September 30, 1822, Joseph Marion Hernández (Whig) becomes the first Hispanic to be elected to the United States Congress. Born a Spanish citizen, Hernández would die in Cuba, but in between he became the first non-white person to serve at the highest levels of any of three branches of the American federal government.
Hernández belonged to a St. Augustine family that came to Florida as indentured servants. Despite these humble beginnings, records show that his family eventually became wealthy enough to own property and several slaves, and that Hernández was educated both in both Georgia and in Cuba. Throughout the 1810s, the United States made a variety of efforts to take Florida from the Spanish, finally succeeding after Andrew Jackson led an army through the territory in the First Seminole War. What Hernández did during this time is unclear, but he was either very savvy or very lucky, he fought the Americans during the war and received substantial amounts of land from the Spanish government, but then pledged loyalty to the United States and was allowed to keep his three plantations when the territory changed hands in 1819. It was then that Hernández changed his name from José Mariano to Joseph Marion.
The newly-acquired Florida Territory was allowed to elect a delegate to congress, but that delegate did not have voting privileges. Florida's legislative council elected Hernández to represent the territory. During his brief tenure, he served for less than a year before losing his re-election bid, Hernández was instrumental in facilitating the transition from Spanish to American government in Florida. In addition to securing the property rights of many Floridians who remained after the annexation, he also advocated for roads and infrastructure to bind the new territory together and make it an attractive candidate for statehood.
He went on to fight in the Second Seminole War, helping his adopted nation drive the natives from its new territory. The war saw the loss of two of his plantations, however, as well the destruction of his political ambitions after he was involved in an incident in which an American contingent captured a number of Seminoles despite approaching them under a flag of truce. Hernández later served as Mayor of St. Augustine before retiring to Cuba, where he died in 1857.
On September 30, 1938, British and French prime ministers Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier sign the Munich Pact with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. The agreement averted the outbreak of war but gave Czechoslovakia away to German conquest.
In the spring of 1938, Hitler began openly to support the demands of German-speakers living in the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia for closer ties with Germany. Hitler had recently annexed Austria into Germany, and the conquest of Czechoslovakia was the next step in his plan of creating a “greater Germany.” The Czechoslovak government hoped that Britain and France would come to its assistance in the event of German invasion, but British Prime Minister Chamberlain was intent on averting war. He made two trips to Germany in September and offered Hitler favorable agreements, but the Fuhrer kept upping his demands.
On September 22, Hitler demanded the immediate cession of the Sudetenland to Germany and the evacuation of the Czechoslovak population by the end of the month. The next day, Czechoslovakia ordered troop mobilization. War seemed imminent, and France began a partial mobilization on September 24. Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Daladier, unprepared for the outbreak of hostilities, traveled to Munich, where they gave in to Hitler’s demands on September 30.
Daladier abhorred the Munich Pact’s appeasement of the Nazis, but Chamberlain was elated and even stayed behind in Munich to sign a single-page document with Hitler that he believed assured the future of Anglo-German peace. Later that day, Chamberlain flew home to Britain, where he addressed a jubilant crowd in London and praised the Munich Pact for bringing “peace with honor” and “peace in our time.” The next day, Germany annexed the Sudetenland, and the Czechoslovak government chose submission over destruction by the German Wehrmacht. In March 1939, Hitler annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia, and the country ceased to exist.
On September 1, 1939, 53 German army divisions invaded Poland despite British and French threats to intervene on the nation’s behalf. Two days later, Chamberlain solemnly called for a British declaration of war against Germany, and World War II began. After eight months of ineffectual wartime leadership, Chamberlain was replaced as prime minister by Winston Churchill.
On September 30, 1889, the Wyoming state convention approves a constitution that includes a provision granting women the right to vote. Formally admitted into the union the following year, Wyoming thus became the first state in the history of the nation to allow its female citizens to vote.
That the isolated western state of Wyoming should be the first to accept women’s suffrage was a surprise. Leading suffragists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were Easterners, and they assumed that their own more progressive home states would be among the first to respond to the campaign for women’s suffrage. Yet the people and politicians of the growing number of new Western states proved far more supportive than those in the East.
In 1848, the legislature in Washington Territory became the first to introduce a women’s suffrage bill. Though the Washington bill was narrowly defeated, similar legislation succeeded elsewhere, and Wyoming Territory was the first to give women the vote in 1869, quickly followed by Utah Territory (1870) and Washington Territory (1883). As with Wyoming, when these territories became states they preserved women’s suffrage.
By 1914, the contrast between East and West had become striking. All of the states west of the Rockies had women’s suffrage, while no state did east of the Rockies, except Kansas. Why the regional distinction? Some historians suggest western men may have been rewarding pioneer women for their critical role in settling the West. Others argue the West had a more egalitarian spirit, or that the scarcity of women in some western regions made men more appreciative of the women who were there while hoping the vote might attract more.
Whatever the reasons, while the Old West is usually thought of as a man’s world, a wild land that was “no place for a woman,” Westerners proved far more willing than other Americans to create states where women were welcomed as full and equal citizens.
Newspaper illustration showing women at the polls in Cheyenne in 1888.
On September 30, 1949, after 15 months and more than 250,000 flights, the Berlin Airlift officially comes to an end. The airlift was one of the greatest logistical feats in modern history and was one of the crucial events of the early Cold War.
In June 1948, the Soviet Union suddenly blocked all ground traffic into West Berlin, which was located entirely within the Russian zone of occupation in Germany. It was an obvious effort to force the United States, Great Britain, and France (the other occupying powers in Germany) to accept Soviet demands concerning the postwar fate of Germany. As a result of the Soviet blockade, the people of West Berlin were left without food, clothing, or medical supplies.
Some U.S. officials pushed for an aggressive response to the Soviet provocation, but cooler heads prevailed and a plan for an airlift of supplies to West Berlin was developed. It was a daunting task: supplying the daily wants and needs of so many civilians would require tons of food and other goods each and every day. On June 26, 1948, the Berlin Airlift began with U.S. pilots and planes carrying the lion’s share of the burden. During the next 15 months, 277,264 aircraft landed in West Berlin bringing over 2 million tons of supplies. On September 30, 1949, the last plane, an American C-54, landed in Berlin and unloaded over two tons of coal. Even though the Soviet blockade officially ended in May 1949, it took several more months for the West Berlin economy to recover and the necessary stockpiles of food, medicine, and fuel to be replenished.
The Berlin Airlift was a tremendous Cold War victory for the United States. Without firing a shot, the Americans foiled the Soviet plan to hold West Berlin hostage, while simultaneously demonstrating to the world the “Yankee ingenuity” for which their nation was famous. For the Soviets, the Berlin crisis was an unmitigated disaster. The United States, France, and Great Britain merely hardened their resolve on issues related to Germany, and the world came to see the Russians as international bullies, trying to starve innocent citizens.
‘Irrelevant Diatribe’: Sorority Girls Fire Back after Male ‘Sister’ Accuses Them of Bullying in Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit.
(If you have any problems seeing what wrong here, you need to pull your head out of your ass so you can see clearly.)
Attorneys representing the six female students who sued their sorority for admitting a male into their sisterhood blasted his written demand that the court throw out their lawsuit Friday as an “irrelevant diatribe” filled with “untruthful, misleading attacks.”
In March, six female University of Wyoming students sued KKG and its president Mary Pat Rooney, arguing that their chapter’s decision to admit a man, Artemis Langford, violated the national organization’s corporate charter. KKG responded on June 21 by calling the claims “baseless” and the litigation “frivolous” in a motion to dismiss.
Langford then filed a memo, obtained by National Review, in support of the motion, alleging that the sorority members intended to “bully” him rather than seek judicial relief. His lawyers argued that he should not have also been named as a defendant in the suit and that the complaint contained excessive factual details, failing to be “simple, concise, and direct” as required by Rule 8 of Federal Civil Procedure.
For example, Langford’s lawyer objected to references to his large physical size, which his lawyer called “insulting jabs,” in the complaint. But those details were key to highlight that Langford’s new gender identity did not negate his overwhelmingly masculine stature, which many of the plaintiffs found intimidating, they wrote in the response.
“Allegations about Langford’s size are not a comment on his physical fitness,” the response reads. “These facts, in part, demonstrate the extent to which Langford’s claim of womanhood obscures the actual interactions taking place . . . Biological males like Langford do not become smaller or weaker just because they claim to be a woman. Langford is an individual with physical size unusual for men and unheard of for women.”
Langford is 6’2” and 260 pounds, according to the complaint. Fewer than 1 percent of women in the U.S. were 6’2” or taller from 2007 to 2008, according to Census Bureau data from that time cited in the response. Only 6 percent of all men were. Only about 5 percent of men weighed more than 260 pounds.
“Plaintiffs are living the reality of Langford’s biological, sex-based differences,” the response added. “When a 6’2” person who weighs 260 pounds and has benefited from male puberty sits in a sorority dining room—staring and scowling at the young women who filed a complaint with this Court—that moment is not just a disagreement among ‘us’ girls. That angry glare is a threat, a threat made possible by that man’s superior size and strength.”
The plaintiffs reiterated in their response that Langford was attached to the lawsuit because the litigation directly involves him — a biological male and member of Kappa Kappa Gamma whose induction they assert violates KKG’s bylaws. Langford’s behavior, since becoming a member and gaining access to the formerly single-sex home where they live, has also harmed them, the response said.
When it was filed in March, the complaint stated that Langford had not yet taken steps to transition. He still carried a driver’s license that identified him as a male, wore women’s clothing only occasionally, and refrained from treatments such as hormone therapy, feminization surgery, and laser hair removal.
Langford was also sexually interested in women, the plaintiffs alleged, using Tinder to meet them. Witnesses cited in the complaint said they sometimes saw Langford sitting alone in private areas of the sorority house, where he could peer at the women walking by, with a visible erection. A pillow sometimes sat on Langford’s lap, the witnesses said.
“There definitely have been awkward interactions and creepy, weird moments, but that proves why we’re doing this and speaking out, for other girls with the same situation where a biological man is in a sorority house or locker room with women,” Hannah Holtmeier, one of the plaintiffs, previously told National Review.
The latest response from the sorority members notes that some of them have been sexually assaulted in their past.
“They are suffering real physical and emotional damages as a result of Langford’s terror in their home, the monetary damage of which is extensive special damages far above the jurisdictional threshold required in a case of this nature,” it reads. “Some women can’t go to their home at all. Some witnesses have experienced such adverse health reactions that they dropped the sorority altogether. Some moved away to be a part of another college. Langford is not the victim.”
If you have any problems picking out the dude in this picture, you should have your testosterone level checked.
