Common Sense with Paul Jacob

Goose/Gander/Flock

flock camera, surveillance, privacy, police

The people behind the Flock cameras that I talked about a month ago have not stopped trying to erect a total roadway surveillance state.

Pairing traffic cameras with artificial intelligence, the company behind the cameras provides a complete spy system, tracking drivers’ and automobiles every move. At least, they are trying. They have enough data to cook up a transportation profile on you right now, at least if you drive through the cities and freeways where Flock cameras are pointed at traffic.

The fact that the police with access to Flock’s database cannot keep their hands off the data is just the tip of the goosefeather.

Musician, technology maven, and YouTuber Benn Jordan decided to test Flock Safety, to see if what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. So he registered as a journalist to attend Flock Forward 2026, the company’s swag-pushing, PowerPoint-heavy convention. But he was rebuffed: no journalists allowed. Not only barred from the convention floor, the good geese at Flock so feared exposure that they had the Hilton he had registered at cancel his reservation!

Using his technological expertise, Mr. Jordan recorded Internet traffic and open-mic conversations as well as — and this is genius — used a.i. face-recognition to answer Juvenal’s challenge, “who will watch the watchers”: he watched, finding policemen, politicians, businessmen and a former Minnesota state senator amongst the gaggle.

We are told that we have no expectation of privacy on public roads. But is a Flock of a.i.-backed cameras the kind of thing we want spying on us, tracking our every move?

While we say that “it’s only a conspiracy if they do it in secret,” what is it when the people who seek to destroy the last vestiges of our privacy demand their own privacy even as they plot against us?

Not good. That’s what.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags flock camera, police, privacy, surveillance

Thought

Chief Joseph

You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.
Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt (Chief Joseph), “An Indian’s Views of Indian Affairs” (1879), The North American Review, 128 (269), 412–433.

Today

Galileo’s Telescope

On August 25, 1609, Galileo Galilei first demonstrated his new construction, the telescope, to Venetian lawmakers. Magnifying distant images at first by three times, then, soon after, by about eight or nine times, it quickly became a profitable sideline for Galileo, who sold his telescopes to merchants who found them useful both at sea and as items of trade. He published his initial telescopic astronomical observations in March of the next year.

Galileo did not exactly invent the device, but perfected it for astronomical observation. It was called a “Danish perspective glass” in the version that had inspired him, and the idea might have been ancient. It was at least not wholly new, as suggested in the great short story “The Eye of Allah” by Rudyard Kipling.

Accountability crime and punishment government transparency

Deadly Shenanigans

It has been five years since I first wrote about “The Man the Media Missed,” Dr. Peter Daszak. But this British zoologist, crucial in the funneling of U.S. taxpayer funds to gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, is now feeling heat from U.S. prosecutors. He may get away unsinged, but . . .

As reported here over the weekend, a man has confessed to conspiring to “evade public records laws and conceal government documents related to grant research funding and the Covid-19 pandemic.” His name is David Morens, and he received two bottles of a Napa Valley red blend wine from Daszak. And a note containing two killer sentences:

“This is the first of what I hope will be a continued series of expressions of gratitude for your advice, support, and behind-the-scenes shenanigans in my battle against your bosses [sic] boss, his boss, and the ultimate boss on the hill. It takes courage and commitment to do what you’ve done, given your job and the vindictive nature of the Administration.”

The effrontery: In April 2020, funding to Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance was cut off. This is apparently the president’s “vindictiveness.” How awful of the administration, seeking vengeance for Daszak’s evading the prohibition on dangerous research . . . and unleashing a deadly virus upon the world!

Daszak yearned for a more forgiving president, I guess.

For his part, Morens — now facing five years in prison — was more than forgiving, and advised Daszak to hide emails, also complaining that FOIA requests were “dreadful and paranoia inducing.”

Daszak may get away with his crime against humanity, but at least this fact is clear: Morens and his boss Antony Fauci conspired with Peter Daszak to bury the truth of their deadly “shenanigans.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags conspiracy, cover up, covid, crime

Thought

Homer

Post author By Redactor
Post date August 24, 2026
2 Comments on Homer

Δειλαί τοι δειλῶν γε καὶ ἐγγύαι ἐγγυάασθαι.

Worthless is as worthless does.
Homer, The Odyssey, Book VIII (Martin Hammond, trans., 2000), line 351. This is variously translated. William Cullen Bryant (1871) has Vulcan say these words: “little is the worth of pledges given For worthless debtors.” Richmond Lattimore’s rendering (1965; 1991) is ungainly but follows the Greek closely: “The business of wretches is wretched even in guarantee giving.” Stanley Lombardo’s version (2000) is especially elegant: “Worthless is the surety assured for the worthless.” Robert Fitzgerald (1998), however, breezes by the poetry here: “I should not swear to a scoundrel’s honor.”

Today

The Great Soviet Crackup Began

Post author By Redactor
Post date August 24, 2026
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On August 24, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. On the same day, and not coincidentally, Ukraine declared itself independent from the Soviet Union.

Update

Ivermectin Redux

Ivermectin was one of the drugs medically deprecated during the pandemic (sometimes called the “plannedscamdemic”) that had to be repudiated because, by U.S. law, if a traditional drug could treat a new contagion, no new drug could be rushed through the regulatory system. So a huge psychological operation went underway to repudiate the promising alternatives, such as HCQ and, yes, Ivermectin.

Paul Jacob has covered this at ThisIsCommonSense.org — this very website. In September 2021, for example, the “horse dewormer” propaganda was discussed in “Ingested Invective Rejected.” One of this site’s “Thought” features quoted from The War on Ivermectin (2024):

In 2022, Paul wrote about Dr. John Campbell’s reporting on Ivermectin, in “This Is Just Huge.” In that spirit, consult Dr. Campbell after that:

John takes Ivermectin (nine months ago):

“New positive Ivermectin evidence” (eight months ago):

“Ivermectin and mebendazole, 84% benefit in cancer” (four months ago):

And, three weeks ago, Dr. Campbell laid out the damage done by suppressing Ivermectin during the pandemic:

And Campbell is not alone in noticing the researched benefits of the drug:

Thought

Tecumseh

Any sale not made by all is not valid. The late sale is bad. It was made by a part only. Part do not know how to sell. It requires all to make a bargain for all. All red men have equal rights to the unoccupied land. The right of occupancy is as good in one place as in another. There can not be two occupations in the same place. The first excludes all others. It is not so in hunting or traveling; for there the same ground will serve many, as they may follow each other all day; but the camp is stationary, and that is occupancy. It belongs to the first who sits down on his blanket or skins which he has thrown upon the ground; and till he leaves it no other has a right.
Tecumseh to Governor Harrison (August 1810).

Today

Sacco & Vanzetti

On Tuesday, August 23, 1927, 36-year-old Nicola Sacco and 39-year-old Bartolomeo Vanzetti died on the same date and at the same location, executed after a lengthy, controversial trial for a murder and robbery, committed on April 15, 1920. The two were anarchists and Italian immigrants to America. The means of execution was the electric chair for both; the times of execution were between noon and 12:30 on that Tuesday.

Update

An Admission

The ongoing Fauci story keeps going on, and some elements of it are being solidified into Accepted Fact. What element? Conspiracy.

“Former Fauci adviser pleads guilty in US to conspiring to conceal COVID records,” is the Reuters title. The plea occurred last Tuesday, when “former adviser to infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci” formally admitted guilt for “conspiring to evade public records laws and conceal government documents related to grant research funding and the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The confessed criminal is named David Morens. “The 78-year-old had been indicted in April on charges related to what prosecutors said was a ⁠scheme to thwart public records requests received by the agency beginning in April 2020 related to COVID-19 research grants.

He faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced on November 12.

“By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did, and he will continue to do so,” Timothy Belevetz, his lawyer, said in a statement.

The plea came after Fauci, who led the NIAID for 38 years and became the face of the U.S. pandemic response, appeared before a Senate panel last month and repeatedly invoked his right against self-incrimination.

Dr. John Campbell reported on this two days ago: