Thought

Bolesław Prus

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Let people be happy according to their own lights.

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Do-Gooders Do Bad
Sharing“Democracy should be for everyone,” says Michelle Romero of the …
Wheels of Injustice
SharingThe wheels of injustice creak along slowly. Indicted in October last …
A Private Party
SharingVirginia delegate Beau Correll won’t cast his first ballot vote …
Finished Business
SharingThe civil war is over! I mean Nebraska’s civil war, a 23-year …
A Different Drum
SharingKent Drum and I step to the beat of different drummers. At …

Abolish. Or Set in Stone
November 13, 2024
Paul Jacob knows what to do with hypocrisy on at …Read More »
Destroying Dane Farming
November 12, 2024
Paul Jacob on Europe’s ongoing suicide over “greenhouse gases.”Read More »
Disaster Relief Pass-Over
November 11, 2024
Paul Jacob on partisanship at FEMA.Read More »
Exemplary Rejections
November 8, 2024
Paul Jacob celebrates voters in three states who protected their …Read More »
Not Now
November 7, 2024
Paul Jacob on political lessons to be learned — or …Read More »

Democratic-Republican Day
Sharing“We live in a republic,” I often hear, “not a democracy!” Sometimes it …
My Kind of Mayor?
SharingChicago, the nation’s fabled “second city” — though, now the third largest …
Living on Markwayne Logic
SharingJust months ago, Congressman Markwayne Mullin (R‑Okla.) made headlines by …
Reform Follows Function
SharingWaiting for this week’s Supreme Court decision on Obamacare, which …
Replacing Souter
SharingSupreme Court Justice David Souter is retiring. Apparently, Washington life …

Of Loot and Leverage
SharingWithout a special kicker, why should police bother to do their jobs? …
Beacon of Liberty
SharingWhat part should we play in terror, torture, oppression? Asking for …
Between the Devil and the Deep State, See?
Sharing“If it turns out that impeachment has no sting, has …
Against Spying on American Journalists
SharingDoes the Federal Bureau of Investigation have a file on you? Does …
Gloating Time?
Sharing“The freak-out was something to behold,” I wrote two years ago. Newly …

On this day in 1833, Denison Olmsted was alerted by his neighbors to something truly amazing, a night sky filled with shooting stars.

Not just a one or two or a dozen or a hundred: 72,000 or more per hour. Though recognizing where among the constellations meteors came from was ancient knowledge, it had not been recorded by modern-era scientists, at least in this case. What Olmsted noticed was that the meteors were coming from one point in the sky, the constellation Leo. This regular meteor event is now called the Leonid meteor stream.

In the morning, Olmsted wrote a brief report on the meteor storm for the New Haven Daily Herald newspaper, which elicited correspondence from around the country, thus beginning a social storm, in a sense: crowd-sourced science.