On October 15, 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus was arrested for spying. In December he was convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment, and sent to Devil’s Island in French Guiana.
In 1896, new information came to light that would exonerate the 35-year-old Frenchman of Jewish descent, thus beginning a scandal that divided Third Republic France and brought anti-Semitism into the spotlight of European moral criticism.
At the time of that September 29th report, the vessels that attacked the fishing boat were only identified as “foreign.” But everyone knew which country was responsible.
Only the Chinazis, as Hong Kongers call those atop the Chinese Communist Party, behave with such brutality and callous disregard for the rights of others. The boats involved turned out to be part of China’s Maritime Safety Administration.
“Safety”?
Well, safe for Chinese exploitation of the entire South China Sea (SCS), 90 percent of which the genocidal totalitarian regime claims as its own and is now actively policing — without regard to international law or the rights of the Vietnamese, Filipinos, Malaysians, Taiwanese, Indonesians and others.
After arbitration between the Philippines and China under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas, an international court ruled in 2016 that China’s SCS claims were without any foundation. Obviously China continues to ignore the international court — and with increasing force.
“[T]he Chinese Coast Guard and the Philippine Navy clashed at sea and in the air a whopping six times in August over key areas of the SCS,” noted a story in The National Interest, adding that five of the six incidents occurred in Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone. The sixth was in international waters. None took place anywhere close to China.
Without a military alliance with the United States “China would basically consider you as a meat on the table,” explained Professor Renato Cruz De Castro of De La Salle University in Manila,
“China would simply subjugate you,” the professor continued, “whether you appease China or challenge China.”
This stark reality now drives even Vietnam to seek help from the United States … as the world lurches closer to World War III.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Note: After putting this commentary to bed, news broke last night that China’s military is encircling Taiwan in a military exercise practicing an invasion and/or blockade of the democratic island nation.
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Whoever undertakes to rule the kingdom and to shape it according to his whim — I foresee that he will fail to reach his goal. That is all.The kingdom is a living being. It cannot be constructed, in truth! He who tries to manipulate it will spoil it, he who tries to put it under his power will lose it.
Therefore: Some creatures go out in front, others follow, some have warm breath, others cold, some are strong, some weak, some attain abundance, other succumb.
The wise man will accordingly forswear excess, he will avoid arrogance and not overreach.
Lao Tzu, as quoted in the second of the Six Pamphlets of the “White Rose” Students.
On October 14, 1774, the First Continental Congress denounced the British Parliament’s Intolerable Acts and demanded British concessions.
Called the “Coercive Acts” in Great Britain, the Intolerable Acts were a series of five punitive programs directed against the American colonies after the Boston Tea Party. Opposition to them led to armed conflict in April 1775 and to a Declaration of Independence in July 1776.
You might think that if they wish to provide for secure elections, you’d set up security systems, including poll-watchers and other election inspectors, sticking rigorously to every last quantum of punctilio towards the law.
You might think that if they wish to rig and game elections, they wouldn’t be sloppy on election security, trying hard to appear to seek election integrity.
But in Detroit, Michigan, a court has sided with the Republican National Committee, and other aggrieved parties, who had sued the city in August, “alleging that it violated state law that requires election officials to hire an equal number of poll workers on both sides of the political aisle,” according to The Epoch Times. “The city, the lawsuit alleges, hired seven times as many Democrats as Republicans, which the RNC said decreases public trust in elections.”
According to the complaint, the Republican Party nominated 675 election inspectors; however, the city only appointed 52 for the primary election.
The city hired up to 250 Republicans who weren’t nominated by the RNC, leaving a ratio of seven Democrats to one Republican inspector, which the RNC said was “not even close to equal.”
In comparison, the city hired more than 2,300 election inspectors from the Democratic Party.
“This uneven distribution of poll workers not only breaches state law but also undermines the integrity and fairness of the electoral process,” the RNC said in the August press release. “Our lawsuit demands that Detroit appoint more Republican inspectors.”
Matt McGregor, “Michigan Republicans Win Election Integrity Lawsuit Over Number of Poll Workers,” The Epoch Times (October 12, 2024).
After losing the lawsuit, the city responded with the usual blather.
In reality, dangerous temperatures — which overwhelmingly come from too much cold, not too much heat — are a smaller danger than ever thanks to two forces: fossil-fueled climate mastery and modestly warming temperatures. Contrary to the portrayal of the unimpacted global climate system as a delicate nurturer that will be ruined by a few degrees of warming, most climates have a dynamic range of often-dangerous temperatures — which are largely more dangerous at the cold end than at the warm end.
Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas — Not Less (2022).