L’homme doit être content, dit-on; mais de quoi?
Man ought to be content, it is said; but with what?
François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire), Pensées, Remarques, et Observations de Voltaire; ouvrage posthume (1802), p. 232.
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Independence Days
September 16 marks the Independence Days for Mexico (celebrating the declaration of independence from Spain in 1810) and Papua New Guinea (commemorating the exit from Australia in 1975).
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SpaceX Goes Way Up
The big news this weekend should have been SpaceX’s big accomplishment this past week. But talk of it has been oddly muted. Some have drawn political conclusions from the silence, such as Friday’s post by “DogeDesigner” on X (@cb_doge on Twitter): “SpaceX, an American company, just completed the first-ever commercial spacewalk, the farthest from Earth in over 50 years. Yet, no recognition or appreciation from the President. For [the] Democratic party, politics always comes first, not America.”
Elon Musk replied with a “Sigh.”
But in the Democrats’ defense, they have a whole lot to lose by saying anything nice about Elon Musk’s two outfits in question, X and SpaceX. Further, just maybe the president of the United States (Biden?) has been waiting for the mission’s completion.
Wait no more!
“Tech billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis completed the first-ever commercial spacewalk in SpaceX-designed suits,” we read at Devdiscourse. “The Polaris Dawn mission tested new spacesuit technology in extreme conditions and conducted 36 experiments. This mission marks a significant milestone in commercial spaceflight and advances scientific knowledge for future space endeavors.”
The space walk occurred on Thursday, with all five crew members participating. The flight began on Tuesday. Splashdown of Polaris Dawn’s Dragon spacecraft occurred early Sunday.
Oh, and the new space suits look snazzy.
Paul Jacob has been following SpaceX for years here on Common Sense with Paul Jacob.
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J. R. R. Tolkien
You can make the Ring an allegory of our own time, if you like: an allegory of the inevitable fate that awaits all attempts to defeat evil power by power. But that is only because all power magical or mechanical does always so work.
J. R. R. Tolkien, speaking on the central figure of the One Ring in his books The Lord of the Rings, in a letter to his publisher (July 31, 1947); published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien(1981), Letter 109.
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After Porto
On September 15, 1820, an uprising occurred in Lisbon, Portugal, following similar insurrection in Porto the previous month. This was no bloodthirsty mob, but, instead, a popular demand for constitutional government. Unfortunately, the country was beset with imperial and monarchical problems for some time to come.
The United Nations established September 15 as International Day of Democracy, in 2007. An Independence Day is celebrated on this date in Guatemala (a Patriotic Day), El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, commemorating independence from Spain in 1821.
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Not To Be Saved
H.R. 8281, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act), introduced by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), would require voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship at the time of registration. It passed the House in July and is hovering in the Senate where . . .
Wait. Something happened. It’s been placed in the latest Continuing Resolution (CR) on the budget!
But before you get too excited, Thomas Massey, Republican Representative from Kentucky, calls this a “Bright Shiny Object” which will be voted for by Republicans and voted against by Democrats and, according to the rules of “political theater” will be removed before the CR goes to the president’s pen.
Besides, the SAVE Act can’t save the election we’re worried about, since the general election will be held just a few weeks from now and everybody’s been registered and . . .
Well, watch Massey on X.
Il est bien malaisé (puisqu’il faut enfin m’expliquer)
d’ôter à des insensés des chaînes qu’ils révèrent.
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
Voltaire — François-Marie Arouet (1694 – 1778) — Le dîner du comte de Boulainvilliers (1767): Troisième Entretien.
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Missing Eleven
In 1752, throughout the British Empire, September 2 was followed, the next day, by September 14, as the government adopted the Gregorian calendar, skipping eleven days.
On September 14, 1944, Maastricht becomes the first Dutch city to be liberated by allied forces.
The late Bernie Baltic used to ask politicians, who invariably wanted him to write them a check, “What are your principles?”
They would then recite their key issues or the issues they thought were key to getting Bernie to write that check. He would stop them, saying, “Not your issues — issue positions can change — your principles.”
Values are like sorta like principles. In politician speak.
“My values haven’t changed,” Vice-President Kamala Harris assured us, after being quizzed about her flip-flopping on issues including fracking (hello Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes), defunding the police and building a border wall.
CNN host Erin Burnett recently took the Democratic nominee to task, citing an investigation that counted more than 50 instances of Harris “slamming Trump’s border wall,” even while her “campaign ads actually showcase that wall.”
Hard to believe but true: Kamala’s TV spot touts Trump’s wall — his “big distraction,” as she dubbed it — as a symbol of her tough border stance.
You can’t make this stuff up.
In her 2019 book, The Truths We Hold, Kamala Harris identified “a bigger reason to oppose a border wall,” decrying such a structure as “a monument standing in opposition to not just everything I value but to the fundamental values upon which this country was built.”
Therefore . . . it would seem obvious that her values have indeed changed. Or perhaps the problem is that she doesn’t have any values that cannot be trumped (go ahead, pun intended) by the all-powerful need to secure her personal political advance.
That’s her paramount principle.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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William Saroyan
Cowards are nice, they’re interesting, they’re gentle, they wouldn’t think of shooting down people in a parade from a tower. They want to live, so they can see their kids. They’re very brave.
William Saroyan, Madness in the Family (1988).