Thought

Milton Friedman

Sharing

If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Trading One Right for Another
SharingTrades are not unheard of in politics, but somehow they …
Two-Way Communication
SharingTonight Americans have an opportunity to listen to President Barack …
Video: The Straightest Line Between Here and Freedom
SharingOne of the things I do is promote the initiative and …
Agreeable America
SharingAmericans actually agree on a lot of things; it’s a pity that …
Nebraska Initiative: Open or Closed?
SharingIn 2008, State Senator DiAnna Schimek’s 20-year legislative career came …

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 »

Too Much Trouble?
SharingCan you believe it? A new political argument … well, not really. …
The Next Election
SharingElections are wonderful, even when the results are awfully hard …
Chairman Jeffords
SharingIf you’re a partisan Republican, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont is …
Let There Be Light
SharingThe Washington Post sports a new masthead slogan: “Democracy Dies in Darkness,.” …
Don’t Copy Chávez
SharingAmericans eager to weaken various limits on political power here …

Sanders Didn’t Say
SharingWhat can we make of the leftist hatred of the …
Slaves All?
SharingA bizarre argument is gaining popularity: the United States of …
Who Benefits From Our Fears?
Sharing“Think of the children!” I have daughters. And neighbors, nephews, nieces, …
What’s Up With Hate?
SharingReported hate crimes are up. Last year, you may remember, major …
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.