Accountability Thought

James Mill

The government and the people are under a moral necessity of acting together; a free press compels them to bend to one another.
James Mill, The Edinburgh Review, vol. 18 (1811), p. 121.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Recall Legal Scholars?
“For weeks, legal scholars have debated whether the recall election …
Stopping Crony Capitalism
SharingVoters in Wichita, Kansas, went to the polls, Tuesday, to …
Reforms from Ground Zero
“Georgia has become ground zero in the fight over election …
A City in Need of CPR
SharingNext Tuesday, Cincinnati voters will decide Issue 4, a charter amendment …
Video: Music Man?
SharingLast year at this time, I was in Omaha, Nebraska, testifying …

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 »

Politicians Bearing GIFs
SharingYesterday, we discovered that the biggest term limits opponent in …
Incumbent Upon Heaven
SharingMany who pledged to limit their terms in Congress have …
Trump’s Trump
SharingPresident-Elect Donald J. Trump wasn’t my choice. Yet, as with …
Term Limits for Thee
Last Sunday, former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, now …
Putin (and Householder) for Life
SharingFor the last 20 years, Vladimir V. Putin has served (himself) …

E‑Panic
SharingOne of the better arguments for government relies upon sobriety: …
Terms for Taxes
SharingYears ago, I dubbed Tim Eyman “America’s #1 freedom fighter,” and …
Socialism Is Anti-Democracy
SharingCommon sense politics must peer beneath the superficial attractions of …
Evergreen State Blues
SharingOne of the things many people no longer understand about …
Let There Be Light
SharingThe Washington Post sports a new masthead slogan: “Democracy Dies in Darkness,.” …

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.