Common Sense with Paul Jacob

Today

6EQUJ5

Post author By Editor
Post date August 15, 2021
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On August 15, 2012, a complex, high-powered radio transmission was sent from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico towards the constellation Sagittarius. The signal consisted of a digital stream of approximately 10,000 Twitter messages solicited for the purpose by the National Geographic Channel, bearing the hashtag “#ChasingUFOs” (a promotion for one of the channel’s TV series). The sponsor also included a series of video vignettes featuring verbal messages from various celebrities.

The transmission was sent on the 35th anniversary of the reception of a mysterious signal that was interpreted as an alphanumeric sequence, “6EQUJ5,” dubbed the “Wow!” signal, from the general direction of the star Tau Sagittarius. This signal was received by Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope in the United States, and was noticed a few days after August 15, 1978, by astronomer Jerry R. Ehman.

On a sad August 15 in 1971, President Richard Nixon removed the last vestiges of the once-great bulwark of capitalism, America’s adherence to the international gold standard, ending convertibility of the United States dollar into gold by foreign investors. The dollar has remained fiat money ever since, but did not succeed in retaining its previous value.

But then, the dollar under the previous quasi-gold, Bretton-Woods Agreement wasn’t stable either, which is why Nixon felt compelled to close the gold window.

Today

They Led

On August 14, 1765, Sam Adams led the first rebel mob against enforcers of the Stamp Act in Britain’s American colonies.

On this day in 1980, Lech Wałęsa led strikes at the Gdańsk, Poland, shipyards.

initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

To Do Item #1

It’s been a while.

In the early 1990s, citizens in a slew of states succeeded in term-limiting their state legislators. In a few of those states, politicians or the courts managed to kill the term limits despite the popular support for them. Nevertheless, today 15 state legislatures are term-limited.

The last legislature to be term-limited was that of Nebraska, where voters imposed two-term (or eight-year) limits on their unicameral legislature in 2000.

Since then, progress has been slower than we’d like.

Why? Because many politicians work so very hard to keep term limits from being established. Their dastardly tactics include undermining the right of citizen initiative where it exists and blocking statewide citizen initiative rights from being enacted in states that currently lack such rights.

Now North Dakota is about to show us how limiting terms gets done: with the help of widespread public support and dedicated signature gatherers.

A term limits measure has been approved for distribution by North Dakota’s secretary of state. Petitioners need to collect more than 31,000 valid signatures in order to get a constitutional term limits question on the November 2022 ballot.

If the amendment gets to the ballot, it will pass. If it is passed, it will establish term limits of eight years on state representatives, state senators, and the governor. And lawmakers would be barred from proposing a change or repeal of the term limits themselves — only citizens through the initiative process could do so.

Signatures first.

Maybe yours. If you live in North Dakota, you know what to do.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Belief is involuntary; nothing involuntary is meritorious or reprehensible. A man ought not to be considered worse or better for his belief.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, from Article 23 of Declaration of Rights (1812).

Today

A Slave Saw Something

On August 13, 1831, Nat Turner witnessed a solar eclipse, which he interpreted as a sign from God. Eight days later he and 70 other slaves killed approximately 55 whites in Southampton County, Virginia.

national politics & policies social media

Rand on Rumble

Rand Paul, 2016 Presidential Race, Common Sense

“Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, has been suspended from YouTube for seven days,” CNN Business reports, “over a video claiming that masks are ineffective in fighting Covid-19, according to a YouTube spokesperson.”

He is not alone. Videos of other doctors, too, have been taken off YouTube for doing precisely what Dr. Paul has done: quote scientific papers, relate common knowledge, and draw reasonable conclusions … of which, quite apparently, governments, social media companies, and Dr. Fauci don’t approve.

CNN went on to explain: “YouTube indicated that examples of the offending content in the video included the line: ‘Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work. They don’t prevent infection.’” And this line too: “Trying to shape human behavior isn’t the same as following the actual science which tells us that cloth masks don’t work.”

How anyone at YouTube could take issue with these statements, in a free country, sort of boggles the mind. No wonder Rand Paul called his suspension a “badge of honor” and referred to his censors as “Leftwing cretins.”

The senator expanded his thoughts regarding YouTube’s left-induced/state-supported cretinism on an alternative video sharing site, Rumble — which you can easily access from the Summit News report on Paul’s suspension. “Saying cloth masks work, when they don’t, actually risks lives,” the senator pointed out, in what seems to me as common sense a point as possible.

We aren’t saved by wishing upon a star, but by helping ourselves and each other.

Bad means don’t achieve good ends, they hinder.

YouTube increasingly is an enemy of the truth.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Sen. Paul told libertytree.com, “As a libertarian-leaning Senator, I think private companies have the right to ban me if they want to, but I think it is really anti-free speech, anti-progress of science, which involves skepticism and argumentation to arrive at the truth.”

Thought

Georg Simmel

Nobody would work for starvation wages if he were not in a situation in which he preferred such wages to not working at all.

Today

Hawaii

The Hawaiian flag was lowered from ʻIolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawaii to the United States.

crime and punishment insider corruption

Cuomo, Exit Stage Left

Out in a fortnight.

Yesterday, New York’s governor said he’d resign in 14 days.

Dominating the headlines has been Andrew Cuomo’s sexual misconduct scandals.

“It’s [a] shame this is what the Democrats choose to go after Cuomo for, rather than for killing tens of thousands of elderly New Yorkers through his policy of putting COVID-positive patients into nursing homes,” we read at InfoWars.

But this is the usual thing to say . . . at least, for those of us who live and breathe and think outside the usual right-left continuum. And in this case, it may not be applicable.

How so?

Well, on Monday, Assembly Member Charles D. Lavine (D-13th A.D.), Judiciary Committee Chair, made it quite clear that the investigations (yes: plural) going into the impeachment of the governor are not limited to matters of sex. Allegations also considered?

Cuomo’s “improper use of government resources to write and produce a book”;
“allegations concerning [the] nursing home” fiasco; and
“that he provided preferential access to COVID-19 testing to certain friends and/or family members.”

But Cuomo himself isn’t talking up these other issues, which are critically important for the state he “runs.” In his resignation announcement, he dubbed one such indiscretion literally “thoughtless,” openly proclaiming that he “want[ed] to personally apologize” to a female state trooper who accused him of embarrassing sexual banter and unwanted touching.

Up front, however, was his proud proclamation of his support for “diversity.”

That is to mollify the current cultural left. But he quickly switched to blaming today’s loud and rash (rather than “sound” and “reasonable”) politics — on Twitter.

You don’t have to love social media to instead blame Cuomo for his own most grievous faults.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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