Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will see snowfall throughout the day, with a high of twenty-two and a few inches of accumulation. Sunrise is 7:20 AM and sunset 4:22 PM, for 9h 01m 58s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 83.4% of her visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first successful powered airplane flight, near Kitty Hawk, N.C. Demonstrations of their design in France five years later won over doubters: “Facing much skepticism in the French aeronautical community and outright scorn by some newspapers that called him a “bluffeur”, Wilbur began official public demonstrations on August 8, 1908 at the Hunaudières horse racing track near the town of Le Mans, France. His first flight lasted only one minute 45 seconds, but his ability to effortlessly make banking turns and fly a circle amazed and stunned onlookers, including several pioneer French aviators, among them Louis Blériot. In the following days, Wilbur made a series of technically challenging flights, including figure-eights, demonstrating his skills as a pilot and the capability of his flying machine, which far surpassed those of all other pioneering aircraft and pilots of the day.[95][96]
The French public was thrilled by Wilbur’s feats and flocked to the field by the thousands, and the Wright brothers instantly became world-famous. Former doubters issued apologies and effusive praise. L’Aérophile editor Georges Besançon wrote that the flights “have completely dissipated all doubts. Not one of the former detractors of the Wrights dare question, today, the previous experiments of the men who were truly the first to fly …”[97] Leading French aviation promoter Ernest Archdeacon wrote, “For a long time, the Wright brothers have been accused in Europe of bluff … They are today hallowed in France, and I feel an intense pleasure … to make amends.”[98]“
Worth reading in full —
Chelsey Lewis offers 100 things to do in Wisconsin this winter: “The weather outside is frightful, and the fire may be delightful, but that doesn’t mean there’s no place to go. Beat cabin fever with these 100 things to do across Wisconsin this winter.” (Her list starts strong, as numbers 1, 2, and 3 are enticing.)
Adam Entous and Ellen Nakashima report that the FBI backs CIA view that Russia intervened to help Trump win election: “FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. are in agreement with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the presidency, according to U.S. officials. Comey’s support for the CIA’s conclusion — and officials say that he never changed his position — suggests that the leaders of the three agencies are in agreement on Russian intentions, contrary to suggestions by some lawmakers that the FBI disagreed with the CIA. “Earlier this week, I met separately with (Director) FBI James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election,” CIA Director John Brennan said in a message to the agency’s workforce, according to U.S. officials who have seen the message.”
Philip Bump reports that Now you can fact-check Trump’s tweets — in the tweets themselves: “We made a tool [an extension for Google Chrome] that slips a bit more context into Trump’s tweets. It’s still in the early stages, but our goal is to provide additional context where needed for Trump’s tweets moving forward (and a few golden oldies). For example, here’s what it shows in relation to that Trump tweet…”
WashPo fact checking tool: extension for Google Chrome, https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/realdonaldcontext/ddbkmnomngnlcdglabflidgmhmcafogn .
Visiting Twitter using Chrome produces a fact-checking box under Trump’s tweets that merit fact-checking. (The extension only seems to apply to tweets that are factually refutable; Trump’s mere opinions, or his many misspellings and grammatical failures of standard written English, are left unaddressed.)
Peter Beinart offers a theory about why some (but certainly not all) conservatives support Trump in The Key to the Conservative Spilt on Trump: “Partly, they’re aping Trump. But there’s something deeper at work. Ideological conservatives loathe Putin because he represents an authoritarian challenge to the American-backed order in Europe and the Middle East. But many civilizational conservatives, who once opposed the Soviet Union because of its atheism, now view Putin’s Russia as Christianity’s front line against the new civilizational enemy: Islam. Among the alt-right, Putin is a very popular man. He’s popular because he resists the liberal, cosmopolitan values that Muslims supposedly exploit to undermine the West. Richard Spencer, who was until recently married to a pro-Putin Russian writer, has called Russia the “sole white power in the world.” Matthew Heimbach, another prominent figure in the alt-right, recently told Business Insider that “Russia is the leader of the free world.” In 2013, Pat Buchanan penned a column entitled, “Is Vladimir Putin a paleoconservative? In the culture war for mankind’s future, is he one of us?”
Capra contributed to the Why We Fight series to explain the moral imperative of America’s war with the Axis. We’ve no such series against racist nationalists, but hearing and seeing Richard Spencer is a reminder why each day compels a complete & tenacious resistance against Spencer and his ilk: