Categories
Thought

Kenneth Arnold

If our government knows anything about these devices, the people should be told at once. A lot of people out here are very much disturbed. Some think these things may be from another planet. But they aren’t harming anyone and I think it would be the wrong thing to shoot one of them down — even if it can be done. Their high speed would completely wreck them.

Kenneth Arnold, as quoted in “‘Flying discs’ called real by 2 air veterans,” Chicago Times (July 7, 1947). Businessman and aviator Arnold had reported seeing nine mysterious flying objects speeding by Mount Rainier in Washington State, on June 24, and thereby starting the modern UFO craze.
Categories
Today

Blue Marble

On December 7, 1972, Apollo 17 launched, the last of the Apollo Moon missions. Later that day, one of the astronauts — either Ron Evans or Harrison Schmitt — snapped the photo that would later become famous as “The Blue Marble.”

Categories
free trade & free markets judiciary

Musk’s Bête Noire

Elon Musk, judge, space

Should a judge decide how much Elon Musk can be paid?

Well, when the job that Musk is doing is not a government job and a company’s internal process of determining the compensation is voluntary and aboveboard … no.

But according to a Delaware judge, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormic, who last January rescinded Tesla’s compensation package then worth $56 billion, now worth more than $100 billion, Musk is not entitled to this compensation. And she has just affirmed her ruling.

Musk says that “shareholders should control company votes, not judges.”

Tesla says: “The ruling is wrong, and we’re going to appeal.”

The appeal could take a year or more.

There’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution authorizing judges to run private companies or decide how much their most valuable personnel may be paid. The judge has no constitutional warrant. And no moral warrant. 

Not her business.

Ignoring the enormous success of Tesla, McCormic is simply deciding that Musk’s pay is way too much with respect to some arbitrary personal criterion that is irrelevant to the decisions that companies must make to attract and keep their greatest entrepreneurial talents, the ones who do the most to make it all go.

Still, maybe we should give the judge a break — I mean, just a tad?

Remember, it was Chancellor McCormic who forced Musk to go through with his Twitter purchase — which turned out to be the most consequentially favorable free-​speech/​-​free-​press event of our time. 

Sure, then too she was grinding a personal or ideological animus against the magnate.

But credit where credit’s due!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
Thought

Montaigne

There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.

Michel de Montaigne, Essais, Book III, Ch. 13 (1595).
Categories
Today

The 13th & Paul Jacob

On December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, banning slavery in all states and territories.

One-​hundred-​and-​nineteen years later, to the day, in 1984, Paul Jacob (of ThisIsCommonSense​.org, LibertyiFund​.org, and the Citizens in Charge Foundation) was arrested by the FBI for his refusal to register with Selective Service System (the draft people). The Government was probably not attempting to make a commemorative point about involuntary servitude.

Categories
ideological culture media and media people

DEI Realities Unreported

DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion

The high tide of DEI policies — which reward racial affiliation, gender affiliation or gender wishing, group-​think, and group-​wackiness at the expense of sanity and individual merit — seems to be starting to recede. 

But we’re not on safe ground yet. One example of rearguard action by the proponents of these lunacies is the willingness of major publications to hide evidence of harm caused by DEI.

Colin Wright reports that both The New York Times and Bloomberg have “shelved coverage of a groundbreaking study that raises serious concerns about the psychological impacts of diversity, equity, and inclusion pedagogy.”

The Network Contagion Research Institute finds that DEI ideology incites hostility (between members of favored and disfavored groups, you see) and authoritarianism (by bullies eager for new weapons to intimidate and control others).

When presented with various scenarios, participants in the study who had first been exposed to DEI propaganda were much more likely than participants who hadn’t been thus exposed to impute racism to agents in the scenario — even when no evidence to justify the accusation was also presented in the scenario.

Wright suggests that at both the Times and Bloomberg, reports-​in-​progress about the research were killed outright by editors whose decisions to spike the story “align conspicuously with the ideological leanings” of those editors.

NCRI’s work confirms what we know about the dishonesty, injustice, and destructiveness of the DEI enterprise. 

As does the conduct of certain gatekeepers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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