FREE WHITEWATER

Monthly Archives: November 2010

Laws/Regulations, Liberty

National Opt-Out Day Called Against Invasive Body Scanners | Wired.com

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Air travelers, mark your calendar. An activist opposed to the new invasive body scanners in use at airports around the country just designated Wednesday, Nov. 24 as a National Opt-Out Day. He’s encouraging airline passengers to decline the TSA’s technological strip searches en masse on that day as a protest against the scanners, and the new “enhanced pat-downs” inflicted on refuseniks….

“The goal of National Opt Out Day is to send a message to our lawmakers that we demand change,” reads the call-to-action at OptOutDay.com, set up by Brian Sodegren. “No naked body scanners, no government-approved groping…”

….The TSA has asserted that the machines cannot store pictures, but security personnel at a courthouse in Florida were found to not only have saved images but shared them among colleagues in order to humiliate one of their coworkers….

Scientists have also expressed concern that radiation from the devices could have long-term health effects on travelers.

Via National Opt-Out Day Called Against Invasive Body Scanners | Threat Level | Wired.com.

Planning, Walworth County

WCEDA Tabs Another Executive Director

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Well, that didn’t last long — as the post headline from July needs updating already. They’ve made another change at the top, with Mike Van Den Bosch replacing Doug Wheaton.

Then: WCEDA tabs executive director.

There was much official boasting this summer about finding someone credentialed, but that wasn’t the problem. Planning like this, that’s the problem.

The Walworth County Economic Development Alliance has been a bad idea for a long time; the best development would be for it to stop wasting money and shut down.

Comment Forum

Friday Comment Forum: Are We More or Less Free?

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Here’s the Friday open comments post.

Today’s suggested topic — are we more are less free today, as against a decade, or a generation, ago?

Are we freer today?

Here’s my take:

Yes, of course, if one looks at times when whole groups of people were denied liberty. From that vantage, we’re far better off today than 1810, 1910, or even 1960.

Yet, recently developing risks to freedom are considerable. Both government officials and major institutions often oppose the empowering technologies that allow common people to express themselves. It all seems so disorderly and chaotic — and challenging — to those who started their careers before these technologies existed. They expected a different world, one of deference (nearly to the point of servility), and it’s not the world in which they now work. They’re ill-suited for the new climate, but rather than recognize their own limitations, they work to limit speech and action to prevent discussion of those limitations.

There’s a pose in all this, that father knows best, and that ordinary Americans are simply unruly children. It’s nonsense, and just a conceit to which mediocre managers and officials cling to comfort themselves: It’s all so hard, people are so savage, and we’re misunderstood.

There’s a generational problem, but not only a generational problem. Some of these officials are men in their fifties, or older, who came of age believing in horse carts, only to find that Americans came to adopt automobiles, so to speak.

What do you think? Freer, less free, about the same?

The use of pseudonyms and anonymous postings is, 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.

Have at it.

Liberty

Reason.tv: Are We Really Less Free Today? Sheldon Richman on the State of Liberty

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Here’s the description accompanying the video:


Reason.tv sat down with Richman during the recent Libertopia festival in Hollywood, California to discuss the mixed bag that is the state of liberty today. The nanny state and regulatory state may be growing, but Richman points out that many people, from blacks to women, are freer than they used to be. Richman also highlights the liberating power of technology, which breaks down barriers to creative expression and information.

Approximately 6.30 minutes.

Shot by Hawk Jensen and Zach Weissmueller; edited by Alex Manning.
more >>

Cats

Friday Catblogging: How Cats Drink

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For Friday’s catblogging, here are stories and videos about how cats drink. At Wired, Lisa Grossman writes that High-Speed Video Reveals Cats’ Secret Tongue Skills:

High-speed videos reveal the strange technique and delicate balance of physical forces cats use to lap milk from a bowl.

Unlike dogs, who use their tongues as ladles to scoop water into their jaws, cats pull columns of liquid up to their mouths using only the very tips of their tongues.

“Cats are just smarter than dogs from the point of view of fluid mechanics,” said civil engineer Roman Stocker of MIT.



At Ars Technica, in a post entitled Cats use gravity, inertia, gecko-like process to lap up cream, Casey Johnston elaborates on the technique:

….they get water into their mouths using an almost gecko-like process: their tongue tips shoot out, contact the water surface, adhere to it, and pull up to draw the water into a column that moves into their mouths thanks to sheer inertia. Cats then take advantage of their head orientation and gravity to hold that water in a cavity in their palate, just behind their front teeth. They swallow after somewhere between three and 17 laps.

According to the researchers, it’s the cats’ lack of cheeks, and the resulting inability to create suction, that restricts them to lapping. Still, cats have managed to adapt pretty admirably, and the authors note that further study of their tongues could be helpful in developing robots with flexible parts and biomechanical models for understanding the behavior of soft tissues.

See, also, How Cats Lap: Water Uptake by Felis catus.

Note that following the same principle, larger cats like cheetahs lap more slowly:



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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 11-12-10

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Good morning,

Whitewater’s forecast calls for a chance of showers and a high temperature of fifty-three degrees.

There are no municipal meetings in the city today. I’ll post on Whitewater’s municipal budget — a tepid, status quo effort if ever there were one — over the weekend.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1836, Governor Dodge signed Wisconsin’s first bill into law. It was a particularly bad one, a mistaken regulation, ignorant and disrespectful of the political tradition of the country.

On this date territorial governor, Henry Dodge, signed the first law passed by the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature. The law prescribed how the legislators were to behave, and how other citizens were to behave towards them. For example, it authorized “the Assembly to punish by fine and imprisonment every person, not a member, who shall be guilty of disrespect, disorderly or contemptuous behavior, threats, in the legislature or interference with witnesses to the legislature; also to expel on a two thirds majority in either house a member of its own body…” This did not keep the members from vociferous arguments, fist fights, or even shooting one another (see Odd Wisconsin on the entry in This Day in Wisconsin History for February 11th)

Could a city, today, lawfully have a provision like this? No, not close to this, regarding citizens. That hasn’t stop some from trying versions of this effort. That’s a post, though, for another day.

Film

Unstoppable — Film Reviews by Joe Morgenstern – WSJ.com

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Sounds promising…Tony Scott directed Denzel Washington in the Taking of Pelham 123, and that was a fine, innovative remake, I thought. Film critic Morgenstern writes:

Who knew that Unstoppable would be sensational? Talk about well-kept— and welcome—surprises. Tony Scott’s latest thriller turns out to be pure cinema in the classic sense of the term. It’s a motion picture about motion, an action symphony that gives new meaning to the notion of a one-track mind.

Denzel Washington and Chris Pine race to stop a locomotive loaded with toxic cargo in this action movie directed by Tony Scott.

The premise is simple to the point of primal—a runaway freight train hurtling through Pennsylvania with a load of lethal chemicals and no one in the locomotive. On the same track, heading toward it, is another freight train pulled by a locomotive with the movie’s co-stars at the controls: Denzel Washington is the veteran engineer, and Chris Pine is the rookie conductor….


Via Unstoppable, Client 9, Morning Glory | Film Reviews by Joe Morgenstern – WSJ.com. more >>

Uncategorized

La Crosse Tribune: Home with Foot-Deep Piles of Rats to be Demolished

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A lost cause even as a fixer-upper:

A western Pennsylvania home will be demolished because it is so overrun with rats that they measure about a foot deep in spots….Officials will erect a perimeter around the home to try to prevent any rats that survive [extermination] from going into neighboring hopes.

Best of luck – I’ve seen Willard, so I can guess how all this ends…

See, Home with Foot-Deep Piles of Rats to be Demolished.

Crime, University

Wisconsin State Journal – On Campus: A third hate crime reported at UW-Whitewater

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At the Wisconsin State Journal, reporter Deborah Ziff writes about reports of a third hate crime at UW-Whitewater:

Three cars owned by African-American students at UW-Whitewater were vandalized this week, in what university officials are describing as the third hate crime incident on campus this semester.

The owners of the vehicles notified police that the tires were slashed and “KKK” was written in spray paint on the doors and hoods. The cars were parked in residence hall lots and the incidents happened between 11 p.m. Monday and 10 a.m. Tuesday.

See, On Campus: A third hate crime at UW-Whitewater.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 11-11-10

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Good morning,

Today’s forecast for Whitewater calls for a partly sunny day, with a high temperature of sixty-one degrees.



It’s Veterans’ Day in America, and on this day in 1918, World War I came to an end, as imperial Germany accepted an armistice, ending the war. Here’s how the New York Times reported on the war’s end —

….The announcement was made verbally by an official of the State Department in this form:

“The armistice has been signed. It was signed at 5 o’clock A.M., Paris time, [midnight, New York time,] and hostilities will cease at 11 o’clock this morning, Paris time, [6 o’clock, New York time.]

The terms of the armistice, it was announced, will not be made public until later. Military men here, however, regard it as certain that they include:

Immediate retirement of the German military forces from France, Belgium, and Alsace- Lorraine.

Disarming and demobilization of the German armies.

Occupation by the allied and American forces of such strategic points in Germany as will make impossible a renewal of hostilities.

Delivery of part of the German High Seas Fleet and a certain number of submarines to the allied and American naval forces.

Disarmament of all other German warships under supervision of the allied and American Navies, which will guard them.

Occupation of the principal German naval bases by sea forces of the victorious nations.

Release of allied and American soldiers, sailors, and civilians held prisoners in Germany without such reciprocal action by the associated Governments….



City, Press Release

Downtown Whitewater to Host Acclaimed Independent Business Consultant, 11/16 and 11/17

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Here’s a press release from Downtown Whitewater —

DOWNTOWN WHITEWATER TO HOST ACCLAIMED INDEPENDENT BUSINESS CONSULTANT

Downtown Whitewater, Inc has the pleasure to announce that it will be hosting highly acclaimed speaker, trainer, author and consultant Margie Johnson, to aid in equipping entrepreneurs with the knowledge and skills to lead to higher profitability and performance. Mrs. Johnson will be in Whitewater November 16th and 17th for a special two-day program supported by the Wisconsin Main Street Program.

Margie has a thirty-year career as an entrepreneur and business expert who operates Shop Talk, a Virginia Beach based specialized consultation and research firm concentrated in independent retail, hospitality, health care, and financial industries. Margie brings a wealth of experience in business development that has led to a highly successful second career helping companies achieve their best performance. Her focus on customer-centered strategies and solutions has benefited hundreds of businesses by giving them the competitive edge needed to survive and thrive.

Margie will tour Downtown Whitewater the morning of November 16th, followed by in-store visits and consultation with local independent retailers. On the evening of the 16th, Margie will lead a round table discussion on business retention and recruitment to the Downtown Whitewater, Inc. Economic Restructuring Committee to provide education and capacity-building for Downtown Whitewater, Inc.’s service to downtown businesses. Margie will visit additional businesses in the late morning and early afternoon on the 17th.

Margie will deliver a workshop on November 17th from 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. entitled Sustainable Success Strategies, which is designed to stimulate, educate, and challenge participants regarding the new realities that are facing independent businesses. In an environment of rapid change in the marketplace, coupled with economic difficulties at all levels, retailers must rethink all the rules if they are to successfully complete. This workshop is open to all, and will discuss trends in the retail sector, key factors shaping the retail landscape, trends in consumer purchasing habits, independent retail business best practices, and more. The workshop will be held at the Cravath Lakefront Community Building and is open to the public.

Margie’s accolades include the Fred Lazarus National Retail Federation Award, North Carolina Employer of the Year Award, Inside Business 2006 Women in Business Achievement Award, 1998 Outstanding Woman of Hampton Roads, and recognition in Who’s Who in America. She has received coverage in the Virginian-Pilot, the Washington Post, Women’s Wear Daily Specialty Stores Newsletter, at the National Retail Federation, and on WHRO Public Television and NBC’s Today Show.

Downtown Whitewater, Inc was formed in 2006 to facilitate historic restoration and economic vibrancy in downtown Whitewater. Downtown Whitewater, Inc is comprised of a Board of Directors and four committees that meet monthly and oversee the organization’s downtown revitalization efforts as carried out by the Executive Director, Tami Brodnicki, Board Members, and volunteers under the auspices of the state Main Street Program.

For more information on Downtown Whitewater contact Executive Director Tami Brodnicki at director@downtownwhitewater.com or (262) 473-2200.