Over at GazetteXtra.com, there’s a video from community blogger Glen Lloyd that recalls When Mark Twain Came to Janesville, Wisconsin. It’s both informative and well-narrated.

Interestingly, though, the media site where Stelter [the NYT blogger] primarily blogs (New York Times’ Media Decoder) suffers from the lowest percentage of African-American readers (4.6%) when compared to comparable media sites like Mediaite (5.8%), Gawker (6.4%), Mediabistro (9.2%), etc., according to Nielsen Media Research.

I haven’t seen Fox News in who knows how long, but I watch the more libertarian-oriented Fox Business Channel (a newer channel) frequently.

See, NYT Blogger Who Knocked Fox News’ Audience Diversity Has the Same Problem.

The Local Jobs for America Act proposes to spend up to $100 billion to create and save a million public and private jobs in communities this year. While a million jobs sounds like a huge number, let’s look at the money spent on that task and analyze the premise….

The money will go someplace, obviously, and therefore stimulate the economy. They might even create and save some jobs. But the number will be much lower than a million. And if it is, the arithmetic changes. If you think that $100,000 per job created is high, how about $500,000 or a cool million bucks?

Which raises the question: Could $100 billion best be spent to buy a smarter and more accountable Congress?

See, Opinion: New Jobs at $100,000 a Pop?

Trouble is, the real segment leader, not in sales but in value, is a Hyundai, and not the compact rival Elantra but the new Sonata midsize. If you’ve got $20,000 to spend on a four-door family car, would you rather have the audaciously ordinary-looking Cruze or the bigger, quicker, more powerful and more generously equipped Sonata? Throw in the Sonata’s swooping, wind-laminated styling, and this choice isn’t close. I mean, it’s murder most foul, right?

Chevrolet didn’t make any Sonatas available [for a test comparison]. Perhaps the local Hyundai dealership was sold out….

The Cruze, a long time in development and slow to reach the crucial U.S. market—no thanks to a little thing called bankruptcy—arrives out of synch with the rest of the market. Yes, it drubs the Corolla, but the current Corolla has been around since the Earth cooled (2006). Yes, it outpoints the Civic, but the current Civic goes away in less than a year.

In duck hunting, you always lead the duck, which is to say, aim where you anticipate the duck to be in flight. General Motors has not led the duck.

2011 Chevrolet Cruze: Brand-New and Almost Out of Date | Rumble Seat by Dan Neil – WSJ.com.

The CR-Z—which uses essentially the same hybrid powertrain as the Honda Insight—scoots from 0-60 mph in under 9 seconds, gets 39 miles per gallon on the highway and is priced under $20,000 to start. Those are some worthy numbers. Compared with the driving experience of the CR-Z, the Toyota Prius (which represents half of the hybrid market) feels like going on a hunger strike….

Hardy or foolhardy, it [Honda] means to scratch a niche out of the hybrid segment that it can call its own. It’s got a program, it’s got a mission, it’s got a machine. Meanwhile, year by year, model by model, Honda is crafting a portfolio of faster, more fuel-efficient cars. You can’t hate on that.

See, Honda CR-Z: A Hybrid That’s Hot—Sometimes | Rumble Seat by Dan Neil – WSJ.com.

Yesterday’s report also contained the government’s annual historic GDP revisions, and growth was revised downward for the last three years. This means the U.S. is $130 billion, or 1%, poorer than previously thought and that growth will have to be that much faster to catch up….

The message of 2.4% second quarter growth is closer to the opposite: The epic government stimulus has failed to produce the robust expansion the White House promised, and the prospect of higher taxes and more regulation is inhibiting the private animal spirits needed for growth to accelerate….

See, The 2.4% Recovery – WSJ.com.

The entire squad was forced onto a stage at the People’s Palace of Culture and subjected to criticism from Pak Myong-chol, the sports minister, as 400 government officials, students and journalists watched.

The players were subjected to a “grand debate” on July 2 because they failed in their “ideological struggle” to succeed in South Africa, Radio Free Asia and South Korean media reported.

The team’s coach, Kim Jong-hun, was reportedly forced to become a builder and has been expelled from the Workers’ Party of Korea.

See, North Korean football team shamed in six-hour public inquiry over World Cup – Telegraph.

Cathy Young of Reason thinks that the character of English lore and American film was a liberty-loving individualist.

See, A Libertarian Rebel.

His assessment: “…a vehicle that costs $41,000 but offers the interior space and performance of a $15,000 economy car.”

See, at the New York Times, G.M.’s Electric Lemon.

Anemic growth will prove too weak to reduce unemployment from nearly double-digit levels.

See, AP: Recovery Slows in Second Quarter to Weakest in Nearly a Year as Consumers Turn Cautious.

Here’s the Friday open comments post.

Today’s suggested topic is a list of “10 all-time favorite TV events, any category (series, special, sporting event, whatever.)”

Longtime reader of FREE WHITEWATER, The Phantom Stranger, emailed his list (thanks!), based on his suggested topic from last week, and here it is, to kick off the forum:

Here we go, in no particular order…

10) “Batman,” 1966, First 13 episodes, 1966, and Second Season, 1966-’67, while the show still literally had the Pop! Biff!! Zap!!! of cleverness, and tongue-in-cheek. Wish Warners Bros./20th Century Fox would get over their legal ownership wrangling and free The Dynamic Duo to Blu Ray DVD!!!!

I’ll use the comments to add my own list.

The use of pseudonyms and anonymous postings are, of course, fine.

Although the comments template has a space for a name, email address, and website, those who want to leave a field blank can do so. Comments will be moderated, against profanity or trolls. Otherwise, have at it.

I’ll keep the post open through Sunday afternoon. Enjoy.

Here’s a clip from the 1966-67 television series the Green Hornet, as a prelude to today’s open forum topic on television shows.

Enjoy.

Good morning,

Today’s forecast for Whitewater calls for a chance of showers with a high temperature of seventy-nine degrees.

On this day in 1863, Henry Ford was born. The New York Times recalled his accomplishments, following his death in 1947:

Henry Ford was the founder of modern American industrial mass production methods, built on the assembly line and the belt conveyor system, which no less an authority than Marshal Josef Stalin testified were the indispensable foundation for an Allied military victory in the Second World War.

Mr. Ford had many other distinctions. As the founder and unchallenged master of an industrial empire with assets of more than a billion dollars, he was one of the richest men in the world. He was the apostle of an economic philosophy of high wages and short hours that had immense repercussions on American thinking. He was a patron of American folkways and in later years acquired a reputation as a shrewd, kindly sage. But these were all relatively minor compared with the revolutionary importance of his contribution to modern productive processes.

Who needs customer demand when there’s a ready source of taxpayer money to fund the project?

See, from the Wisconsin State Journal, Transportation secretary: ‘There’s no stopping’ high-speed rail.

A study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison examined the reasons people want to drink raw milk, and the backgrounds of those who want to drink it:

New research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Community and Environmental Sociology may offer some answers. Researchers surveyed twelve consumers who had purchased raw milk and 13 farmers who sold raw milk.

Eleven of the surveyed consumers started drinking raw milk within the last five years. Their reasons for buying raw milk included improving their health, cultivating relationships with family farmers, good flavor and supporting “local, sustainable farms”.

Ten of the 12 consumer respondents were health-conscious, urban professionals with college degrees….

That’s a description of knowledgeable adults who are able to decide for themselves. Many of these people chose raw milk as part of an organic food diet, sometimes following illnesses that prompted them to consider natural foods. Portraying those who want to drink raw milk as unsophisticated hicks is false. They’re likely as capable as the bureaucrats who do Big Dairy’s bidding by keeping natural, unpasteurized milk away from consumers.

See, Raw Milk: The Wonder Tonic?.

On a 10-9 vote, supervisors won’t take immediate action to cut their pensions.

County supervisors shouldn’t have pensions; they should never expect that compensation for their work, even in large counties.

See, Milwaukee County Supervisors Sidestep Proposals to Cut Their Own Pensions.

From Walworth County Sunday, an endorsement of U.S. Representative Ryan’s Roadmap for America’s Future:

Poll after poll suggests the profligate president and his party are vulnerable to a smart, clearly articulated alternative that does not further elevate the ravenous federal leviathan. But GOP leaders, from national strategists to congressional heavyweights, have been either unwilling or unable to rally around a message – one of intellectual substance as well as tea party style – that offers a clear response to the Democrats’ reflexive Keynesian expansion of government….

Ryan’s Roadmap for America’s Future, first introduced in 2008, is a daring, comprehensive proposal that reforms ballooning entitlements, addresses the debt crisis, cuts taxes, puts health care decisions in the hands of consumers and promises to once again jumpstart the American economic engine….

Inexplicably, most Republicans see this [smears and distortions against the plan] and remain bashful about publicly embracing Ryan’s Roadmap, even as it gains traction in the debate over the nation’s percolating debt crisis. They seem content to shamble about in the tall weeds, hoping that an ineffectual president alone will ensure their political survival. Given the stakes and the opportunity before them, this is almost laughably gutless.

Well said.

The Ryan’s Roadmap is a way out of encroaching government and oppressive debt. There are few politicians in all America more contemptible than those glutinous Republicans who have embraced big government so that they can keep a place for themselves at the federal, state, or local trough. They sold out the principles of their party, and in doing so, greased the path for an even more profligate federal administration to follow their own.

I’m not a Republican, but I look at that party, and the damage some big-spending Republicans have done to the GOP, and I think that those incumbents must be among the most selfish men one could ever meet.

Ryan’s Roadmap offers a better way for America.

Stossel’s show will air on the Fox Business Network at 8 p.m. central tonight.

In tonight’s program, John Stossel will consider “don’t ask, don’t tell,” age of consent issues, and community deecency laws.

See, Tonight on Stossel: Sex and the Law (8 p.m. Central).

That’s a sensible result: Judge rules that defendant, Julio Martinez, can look foolish so long as he doesn’t offend public order and decency. Slovenly isn’t, and shouldn’t, be criminal.

See, NYC Judge: Saggy Pants Foolish But Legal.

It’s less than we need.

The story reports that a collection of local government associations estimated that, nationally, local governments may cut almost 500,000 jobs through 2011 (or 8.6% of their total workforces).

These are only estimates, and they say nothing about how any particular community will fare.

In any event, sacrifices should always begin at the top, as meaningful reductions in municipal compensation costs.

See, Bloomberg: Jobless Claims in US Declined by 11,000 to 457,000