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Thought

Simone Weil

The struggle between the opponents and defenders of capitalism is a struggle between innovators who do not know what innovation to make and conservatives who do not know what to conserve.

Simone Weil, “The Power of Words” (1937), published in Selected Essays 1934-1943 (1957).
Categories
Today

First

On February 4, 1789, George Washington was unanimously elected as the first President of the United States, under the new Constitution, by the U.S. Electoral College.

On the same date five years later, the French legislature abolished slavery throughout all territories of the French Republic.

Categories
Thought

Jean Sibelius

If we understood the world, we would realize that there is a logic of harmony underlying its manifold apparent dissonances.

Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, as quoted in Henry Thomas and Dana Lee Thomas, Living Biographies of Great Composers (Garden City (NY): Blue Ribbon, [1940] 1946) p. 309.

Categories
Today

Spain & Bagehot

On February 3, 1783, Spain recognized the independence from Britain of the United States of America.

Walter Bagehot (pronounced “badge-it”), famed editor of The Economist and author of Lombard Street, was born on this date in 1826.

Categories
Thought

Morton Feldman

The people who you think are radicals might really be conservatives. The people who you think are conservative might really be radical.

Avant-garde composer Morton Feldman, in Darmstadt, Germany, as quoted by Alex Ross in “Sibelius: Apparition from the Woods” (The New Yorker, July 9, 2007). After quoting Feldman’s statement at the 1984 Summer Courses for New Music, Ross adds that Feldman “began to hum the Sibelius Fifth.”

Categories
Today

Shadows Seen

On February 2, 1887, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, celebrated the first Groundhog Day. On the same day in 1976, the Groundhog Day gale hit the north-eastern United States and south-eastern Canada.

In 2009, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe officially devalued the Zimbabwean dollar for the third and final time, making Z$1 trillion now only Z$1 of the new currency, equivalent to Z$10 septillion before the first devaluation. Politicians in Zimbabwe looked up, saw their shadow, and realized that they had only a couple months more of their inflation binge. Indeed, the legalization of trading currencies, the previous month, had sealed the fate of Zimbabwe’s independent dollar. The Zimbabwean dollar was abandoned officially on the 9th of April, 2009.

Categories
FYI

Black Hawk COG Down

Immediately after the horrific crash between the military Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger plane in Washington, D.C., on January 29, 2025, opinions of all kinds were thrown around as high octane speculation became the order of the day.

But now, after several days, there are a few curious facts worth mentioning.

One: The helicopter was on a training mission for “continuity of government” [COG].

The story hasn’t got much play, but it’s out there, as in the Reuters article “Crashed US Army Black Hawk unit was responsible for doomsday readiness”:

The Black Hawk helicopter that collided with a passenger jet in Washington on Wednesday was on a training flight along a route core to a seldom-discussed military mission to evacuate senior officials to safety in the event of an attack on the U.S., officials say.

The military mission, known as ‘continuity of government’ and ‘continuity of operations,’ is meant to preserve the ability of the U.S. government to operate.”

COG protocols are many and mighty peculiar, and, in case of emergency — such as war, natural disaster, civilizational collapse — are designed to kick in when disaster strikes.

They are not supposed to cause disaster themselves — though they are so murky and shrouded in hush-hush that they sometimes cast a dubious, minatory shadow over the news.

Two: Prior to the collision, on previous nights, helicopter interference with airliner flight paths had interrupted two airliner landing attempts, which had to be re-attempted.

So it seems that the COG folks have gotten careless, and their carelessness was a known issue.

Tower management and personnel did nothing to correct it.

On Friday the FAA forbade helicopter traffic in the region.

Three: The name of the Black Hawk pilot has been withheld from the public at the request of family. Considering that President Trump himself criticized the flying of the craft, this privacy request is hardly shocking.

All passengers and crew of the American Airlines flight died, as did the three crew members of the Black Hawk.


UPDATE: Rumors in the press and online that the pilot was a “trans woman,” named in the press, are now reported as definitely untrue.

Categories
Thought

Langston Hughes

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose —
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

Langston Hughes, “Let America Be America AgainEsquire (1936).

                        

Categories
Today

Touching Upon Slavery

February First in History

1835 — Slavery was abolished in Mauritius.

1861 — Texas seceded from the United States.

1865 — President Abraham Lincoln signed the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, finally abolishing slavery in all United States.

Categories
crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies

A Whistleblower’s Ordeal

Eithan Haim can finally start to put it behind him, the nightmare that began after he helped to expose the fact that a hospital was lying about no longer performing sex-change surgeries on minors.

Reacting to bad publicity about these operations, in March 2022, the Texas Children’s hospital declared that they would no longer perform them. But Haim was among the residents there who quickly learned that hospital was simply not telling the truth and continued to inject puberty blockers into kids as young as eleven.

That the destructive “gender-affirming care” on minors was continuing was first reported by Christopher Rufo at City Journal, relying on documents provided by Haim. These were redacted medical records of the supposedly discontinued “care.” The names of the victims were concealed.

One result of the story was a state ban against performing such operations on minors.

Another was federal prosecution of Haim for allegedly violating the Health Insurance and Accountability Act. The Department of Justice’s case was weak. The DOJ had to keep refiling its court papers because of errors. And it had to replace the initial prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tina Ansari, when it turned out that she had a conflict of interest.

At PJ Media, Rick Moran points out that even if Haim were not ultimately convicted, he was being forced to suffer a huge financial and personal toll as he fought the charges.

Haim: “I was facing a kangaroo court in a few weeks.” 

Not anymore. The Trump DOJ dismissed the case with prejudice — meaning Haim cannot be re-charged.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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