On November 16, 1532, Francisco Pizarro and his men captured Inca Emperor Atahualpa at the Battle of Cajamarca.
In 1811 on this date, John Bright (pictured above), English academic and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was born. Bright (d. 1889), famously worked with Richard Cobden against the Corn Laws (repealed in 1846) as well as for the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty of 1860, which ushered in freer trade and closer interdependence between Britain and France.
The counting of ballots for 2022’s General Election was pretty much wrapped up on election night. In most states. Yet, a week after election day, California election officials have barely counted half the ballots cast in a number of very close congressional districts as well as other state races.
“I anticipate it’s going to take at least a couple of weeks,” offered a Sacramento County Elections spokesperson, “if not three weeks, to process the bulk of the ballots that have come in.”
Why the tortoise pace?
“In short,” KTLA-TV in Los Angeles reports, “it’s a product of the state’s massive population and laws that make it easier and more convenient for every eligible voter to be heard.”
The Big Population argument falls flat. California has more votes to count but likewise more people available to count them. Nor does California have higher voter turnout or rules so different from other states that count much faster.
California law allows ballots to be mailed as late as election day, which does indeed slow the counting. That could of course be tightened up. But it seems the main thing California might do differently is work harder at getting the votes counted. State law only requires that county election offices have folks working six hours a day, with weekends and holidays off.
“We’d rather get it right,” says Secretary of State Alex Padilla (D), “than get it fast.”
Mr. Secretary, the problem is that the longer the election drags on without a winner being declared, the less confidence the public has in the process.
Get it right. And fast.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Satire, though it may exaggerate the vice it lashes, is not justified in creating it in order that it may be lashed.
Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography (1883). Frederick Waddy, illustrator.
On November 15, 1777, the Continental Congress approved, and sent to the states for ratification, the “Articles of Confederation — after 16 months of deliberation. The first article gave the official name of the confederacy:
The Stile of this Confederacy shall be
The United States of America.
This is not a battle that all parents need to fight directly on behalf of their own children. Those who can enroll them in a sane private or charter school, or homeschool them, may do that instead.
But parents who are taking on corrupt school boards have found a couple of very effective approaches.
One, recall campaigns.
Some board members are so horrible that parents will catapult themselves to polling stations for the chance to oust them. Unfortunately, not all voters everywhere have the right to recall crummy officials.
Two, regular board elections.
But to succeed in replacing the zanies entrenched in many school boards with better persons, one must field appropriate candidates.
Among those who have been doing the necessary preparatory work in Minnesota, where “the teachers’ union, Education Minnesota, has largely run our state for decades,” are John Hinderaker of Powerline fame and the members of his organization Minnesota Parents Alliance.
The Alliance reports that in the recent election, its candidates won 49 seats statewide, “with victories in 15 of 19 targeted districts.”
It’s just a beginning. But, wow, a substantial beginning. And fast. The Alliance was created only a year ago. This achievement is also a ray of hope and proof of concept that we parents (and grandparents; and uncles and aunts) in the other 49 states really need.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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There is one principle which pervades all the institutions of this country, and which must always operate as an obstacle to the granting of favors to new comers. This is a land, not of privileges, but of equal rights.
John Quincy Adams, Letter written as Secretary of State under President James Monroe (1819).
On November 14, 1918, Czechoslovakia became a republic.
Born on the same date 29 years later — American writer P. J. O’Rourke.
The man. The myth. The mystery. Plus Spike Cohen, Joe Biden, and other politicians.
These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues.
Abigail Adams, Letter to John Quincy Adams (19 January 1780).
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.
November 13 is World Kindness Day, which has been celebrated in various countries since 1998. It is not an official celebratory day of the U.S.A., or of the United Nations. But individuals are free to be kind this day . . . or any day, for that matter.