Henry Lee III’s eulogy to George Washington in Congress declared the former general and president to be “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” Washington had died on December 14th, 1799, and Lee’s eulogy took place twelve days later.
Colorado now mandates that emissions from burning natural gas be cut, over the next ten years, by 41 percent — the perfect percentage, elsewise it would’ve been rounded to 40.
No more natural gas emissions at all by 2050.
“News that Colorado has set hard target dates for an end to burning natural gas in our daily lives prompted many ‘wait, what?’ questions from Colorado Sun readers,” says Sun columnist Michael Booth. He is here to help.
Propane tanks? These may not be banned by the current law, but do try to convert to electrical appliances. (If the power goes out, Coloradans can always use some other electrical thing as backup. Think batteries, lots of batteries!)
Also, the “new rules are not aimed at homeowners,” Coloradans will be relieved to know. Just at utilities … which serve homeowners. “Under current rules, no one is showing up at your door to rip out a gas water heater against your will.”
Those helpful government agents will show up at your utility’s door with a court order forcing your utility to rip up natural gas lines, instead.
What if the switchover happens too slowly for regulators?
Column for another day.
Any advice on reversing the ban?
Mr. Booth might protest that it’s not his job to lead any rebel alliance, only to give information on things. Oh, sure. Well, he might have offered info on how to contact Colorado state legislators and the governor’s office.
Not for any purpose but just to keep readers well-informed.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the same category. Listen to me: the opposite of radical is superficial, the opposite of liberal is stingy; the opposite of conservative is destructive. Thus I will describe myself as a radical conservative liberal; but certain of the tainted red fish will swear that there can be no such fish as that.
R.A. Lafferty, The Flame Is Green (1971).
On December 24, 1973, the District of Columbia Home Rule Act was passed, allowing residents of Washington, D.C., to elect their own local government.
That’s what Bonnie Miller, president of the League of Women Voters of Arkansas, told her fellow Arkansans after the state’s highest court overturned a 74-year precedent. The justices ruled that constitutional amendments passed by citizens’ initiative can be amended or repealed by legislators with a two-thirds vote of both chambers.
Without the issue ever going back to voters.
Sure, this might seem to follow from a constitutional provision: “No measure approved by a vote of the people shall be amended or repealed by the General Assembly … except upon a yea and nay vote on roll call of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house of the General Assembly …”
But in 1951, the Arkansas Supreme Court declared it “inconceivable” that “the General Assembly could amend or repeal a constitutional amendment initiated by the people,” concluding that the term “measure” simply did not apply to a constitutional amendment. Today’s Supremes reversed this bedrock understanding, thereby empowering the legislature. (Note that the legislature is not seeking to overthrow their own constitutional amendments.)
For more than a decade, the Natural State’s solons have passed statute after statute — and even proposed several constitutional amendments — designed to destroy the citizen initiative process. Their attempts have been consistently defeated by voters at the polls. In addition, last month a federal judge finally struck down several burdensome restrictions that legislators had passed on petitioning.
Now there are also two ballot initiatives — one by Protect AR Rights and another by the League of Women Voters — petitioning for a vote next November to restore the state’s once fair and accessible ballot initiative process.
How long can politicians thwart the will of the people and get away with it? The people of Arkansas are finding out.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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It seems impossible, but there it is.
Kenneth Arnold, quoted in the Chicago Times (July 7, 1947), characterizing the nine UFOs “flying at incredible speed” that he had seen on June 24. He said a man he had met reported seeing something similar over Ukiah, Oregon.
On December 23, 2007, an agreement was reached for the Kingdom of Nepal to be abolished and the country to become a federal republic with the Prime Minister becoming head of state.
The trier in question is fantasy video-game mogul Xu Bo, and The Wall Street Journal reports that he is trying to gain a foothold in the United States in a somewhat novel way … for a rich man, anyway.
He’s fathering children in America. Many children.
And by non-wives who are under surrogacy contracts to bear his children for him.
While domestic surrogacy is illegal in China, it’s not in the U.S. So, being a resourceful billionaire, and inspired by Elon Musk’s fathering of 14 known children, he took action.
A family court in California noticed. When it realized the man was petitioning for parental rights “to at least four unborn children,” explains the Journal, and “learned he had already fathered or was in the process of fathering at least eight more through surrogates, it raised alarm,” and his request was denied.
A “rare rebuke to a little-known trend in the largely unregulated U.S. surrogacy industry” — and it’s a trend that the Chinese super-wealthy are taking advantage of.
What advantage? Birthright citizenship: “Babies born via surrogacy in the U.S. are U.S. citizens by virtue of the 14th Amendment.”
This issue, which looms rather large as tens of millions flocked to America during the Biden years, is key. It allows for all sorts of abuse.
Because the world has changed in 157 years.
Now that the “millionaires and billionaires” are horning in on the act, will Democrats re-think their commitment to birthright citizenship?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Any talented decadent can make unreality believable. To make reality convincing is another matter, a matter for only the greatest masters.
Kenneth Rexroth, “Tolstoy: War and Peace,” Classics Revisited (1968).