Monthly Archives: October 2015
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 10.6.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Tuesday in town will be mild, with a high of seventy and afternoon sunshine. Sunrise is 6:58 and sunset 6:27, for 11h 28m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 32.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1866, America sees the first robbery of a moving train:
…the Reno gang carries out the first robbery of a moving train in the U.S., making off with over $10,000 from an Ohio & Mississippi train in Jackson County, Indiana. Prior to this innovation in crime, holdups had taken place only on trains sitting at stations or freight yards.
This new method of sticking up moving trains in remote locations low on law enforcement soon became popular in the American West, where the recently constructed transcontinental and regional railroads made attractive targets. With the western economy booming, trains often carried large stashes of cash and precious minerals. The sparsely populated landscape provided bandits with numerous isolated areas perfect for stopping trains, as well as plenty of places to hide from the law. Some gangs, like Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch, found robbing trains so easy and lucrative that, for a time, they made it their criminal specialty. Railroad owners eventually got wise and fought back, protecting their trains’ valuables with large safes, armed guards and even specially fortified boxcars. Consequently, by the late 1800s, robbing trains had turned into an increasingly tough and dangerous job.
On this day in 1917, Fighting Bob defends free speech:
On this date Senator Robert La Follette gave what may have been the most famous speech of his Senate career when he responded to charges of treason with a three hour defense of free speech in wartime. La Follette had voted against a declaration of war as well as several initiatives seen as essential to the war effort by those that supported U.S. involvement in the first World War. His resistance was met with a petition to the Committee on Privileges and Elections that called for La Follette’s expulsion from the Senate. The charges were investigated, but La Follette was cleared of any wrong doing by the committee on January 16, 1919. [Source: United States Senate]
A Google a Day asks a question of literature:
What was the drug that Hermes gave Odysseus to help resist the magic of the witch-goddess?
Animals
French Bulldog v. Two Bears
by JOHN ADAMS •
Well done, brave canine –
Waste Digesters, WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN
The Pilot Program
by JOHN ADAMS •
Post 39 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.
(Every question in this series has a unique number, assigned chronologically based on when it was asked. All the questions from When Green Turns Brown can be found in the Question Bin. Today’s questions begin with No. 245.)
Umm, we are not, not processing any agricultural waste.
Question: “It’s industrial waste that we’re doing now?”
And actually we piloted industrial waste simply because the bang for the buck as far as volume to strength so to speak was much greater with industrial waste. So we piloted that. Umm, we learned a lot in a short amount of time. We made more gas than we, we couldn’t control the gas that we were making, for a period of time when we were piloting. Umm, but the issues we had we didn’t have a mode to properly get that product into out tanks we had a tanker a nine-thousand gallon tanker with flex hose going into our digesters [smiles] so we had a leak, you know, we had some issues out there but we we did run that we ran a multitude of different products into our digesters to learn in a short period of time what might work. And, ah, I think staff was very involved in that process and, umm, it was positive, we learned a lot in short period. But, because we had, we couldn’t take advantage of the gas we were creating it became more of a, ah, cost on our labor, then we had nowhere to go with the great gas we were producing. So, we learned what we could in a short amount of time but it was a strain on hours to do that in some fashion because we were doling it in a temporary fashion, ah, maintaining, you know watchin’ those hoses. We didn’t have the infrastructure in place to properly monitor that to make sure that we didn’t have issues.
Question: You can’t really cost effectively make changes that will make that viable, then?
Umm, I do think, and that’s, Nathan [Cassity, of the Donohue firm] alluded to that, umm, that we can, and that’s the baby-steps that he alluded to. And if we, my plug has always been that if we don’t try we’ll never know. Umm, but we do have a tremendous [emphasizes] amount of capacity sitting idle. at the plant. Umm, I think I stated last time, again, we have one digester empty, the other digester is only at one-fifth capacity. So, I mean, we have a lot of room, ah, to bring product in, umm, there is interest out there, umm, we know, I’ve talked to the Council about the risks with that, but I think that as we, ah, venture into that territory I think that there’s a lot of possible, positive outcomes there.
245. How long did the pilot program last?
246. What industrial wastes did Reel use?
247. What quantities did he use?
248. From what sources did he obtain those wastes?
249. How many leaks did the program experience, and of what type, and in what volume?
250. Did Reel report leaks to anyone else in city government? If so, to whom?
251. Did Reel or anyone else in government report leaks to county, state, or federal agencies?
252. How did Reel come upon the idea of attaching flex hose to a 9,000-gallon tank truck for his experiment?
253. Where did the gas Reel produced go?
254. Why would Reel undertake a pilot program when, by his own admission, the city “didn’t have the infrastructure in place to properly monitor that to make sure that we didn’t have issues”?
255. When Reel talks about describing risks to the city at public meetings, can he point to a single instance where he considered risks other than adequate supply of imported wastes? (That is, can Reel show that he has publicly discussed the environmental and health aspects of waste importation?)
256. Could the so-called ‘baby-steps’ program be rapidly escalated to large-scale importation program? If not, why not (specifically)?
257. Isn’t it obvious that Reel wants a large-scale importation program?
258. Where does Reel think money from an importation program principally derives? Does he think it’s gas production, or tipping fees for items imported by truck and dumped into Whitewater’s digester?
259. Did Reel receive approval from anyone else in city government to conduct these experiments, or did he act on his own? If he received approval, from whom did he receive approval?
260. Do Reel, Clapper, or others in city government think that large quantities of liquids and solids imported into Whitewater from other places, after processing, wouldn’t still require removal and dissemination (in their converted forms)? That is, they’ve worked to seek quantity in (by their own statements) but have they considered equally the quantities to be returned to the environment?
WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.
Music
Monday Music: Lianne La Havas @ Tiny Desk Concerts Series
by JOHN ADAMS •
A few weeks ago, the Monday Music post at FW was Lianne La Havas’s What You Don’t Do. That post embedded a music video; in this post La Havas sings What You Don’t Do, Unstoppable, and Forget in the simple setting of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts series.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 10.5.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Monday in town will be cloudy with a high of sixty-three. Sunrise is 6:57 and sunset 6:28, for 11h 31m 30s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 43.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1953, the Yankees win it all for the fifth consecutive time:
The 1953 World Series matched the 4-time defending champions New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers in a rematch of the 1952 Series, and the 4th such matchup between the two teams in the past seven seasons. The Yankees won in 6 games for their 5th consecutive title—a mark which has not been equalled—and their 16th overall. Billy Martin recorded his 12th hit of the Series scoring Hank Bauer in Game 6.
Broadcaster Vin Scully took over Red Barber‘s spot for the series due to a salary dispute. At the age of 25, Scully became the youngest man to broadcast a World Series game (a record that stands to this day).
On this day in 1846, Wisconsin begins deliberations for her future in the Union:
1846 – First State Constitutional Convention Meets
On this date Wisconsin’s first state Constitutional Convention met in Madison. The Convention sat until December 16,1846. The Convention was attended by 103 Democrats and 18 Whigs. The proposed constitution failed when voters refused to accept several controversial issues: an anti-banking article, a homestead exemption (which gave $1000 exemption to any debtor), providing women with property rights, and black suffrage. The following convention, the Second Constitutional Convention of Wisconsin in 1847-48, produced and passed a constitution that Wisconsin still very much follows today. [Source:The Convention of 1846 edited Milo M. Quaife]
A Google-a-Day asks a sports question:
The renowned football, basketball and baseball player and coach who stated, “It is how you show up at the showdown that counts,” was born in what southern state?
WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN
The December 2014 Presentation
(Part 3)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Post 38 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.
In this post, I’ll consider a portion of the public comments at the 12.16.14 meeting, following earlier posts about the meeting (Parts 1 and 2).
(A full recording of the 12.16.14 discussion is embedded at the bottom of this post for ready reference.)
(Every question in this series has a unique number, assigned chronologically based on when it was asked. All the questions from When Green Turns Brown can be found in the Question Bin. Today’s questions begin with No. 230.)
230. At approximately forty-five minutes into the discussion, Wastewater Superintendent Reel compares the regulatory limit for phosphorus for Whitewater and Beloit. He observes that Whitewater’s regulatory phosphorus limit will be .075 mg/L, while Beloit’s will be .2 mg/L, and that Beloit has a higher limit because Beloit discharges into a larger body of water. Isn’t this an admission that Whitewater’s ecosystem cannot manage the same volume of chemical discharge, generally, that other, geographically larger or geographically more diffusive areas can manage?
231. If it should be true (that Whitewater’s ecosystem cannot manage the same volume of chemical discharge, generally, that other, geographically larger or geographically more diffusive areas can manage), then why would Whitewater be a city seeking to import large quantities of waste from other cities?
232. CDA member (and business lobby president) Larry Kachel asks how many people the plant – now – can accommodate by population. Why can’t Superintendent Reel answer with a ready number of how many people?
233. Reel states that the plant’s capacity was designed to accommodate large businesses no longer in the city (dairy Hawthorne-Melody, for example). Is the upgrade being designed with that same greater-than-now needed capacity?
234. If so (that is, if Whitewater new proposal is using a floor that’s based on industrial needs no longer present in the city), then how will that over-capacity be used?
235. At about fifty-six minutes into the discussion, Donohue representative Mike Gerbitz (in answer to a question) says that communities like Whitewater often fund projects like this via subsidized loans rather than bonds because those communities would not qualify for bonds issued (in this case, projected) at 2.7%, and that they take the subsidized loans because it doesn’t reflect in the same way against their borrowing capacity. Isn’t this a tacit admission that the full project cost is outside Whitewater’s capacity to borrow in an unsubsidized, free market?
236. Do city officials think – regardless of how a loan is treated in the formal accounting of it – that the cost of the project by a loan with interest or in bonds with interest is not an obligation?
237. Donohue representative Nathan Cassity, PE speaks beginning at about 1:07 in the presentation about a digester-energy project. Cassity cites a study from Trane that he contends projected a large digester-energy plan that would not be cost effective ($12.4 million in cost, $800,000 in debt service, but only $450,000-560,000 in revenue). Did Cassity see Trane’s completed study (he implies that he did)? Has the full Trane study been released? If not, then why not?
238. Cassity talks about the possibility of importing “high-strength” waste into the facility to generate revenue in a “baby step approach.” What kinds of high-strength waste does he mean?
239. In what probable amounts, and by kind of waste and proportion to the whole amount imported, would that high-strength waste be?
240. What would be the maximum capacity of the waste importation into the digester by Cassity’s proposal?
241. Cassity talks about moving from the initial approach on waste importation to a “phased” increase in waste importation, about which he contends “he has more [information],” but does not disclose. He doesn’t describe, for example, how much more waste that “phased” importation would entail, or of what type it would be. Why hasn’t the plan for phased, increased importation of outside waste – one that Cassity says that he had as of (at least) 12.16.14 – been released?
242. How is it that – in a scheduled presentation – neither Donohue representatives nor city employees can answer, specifically, questions about item costs or supposed greater efficiencies?
243. Who was, by Gerbitz’s account, the attorney who worked with Reel to develop a plan to pay a charge in lieu of removal, rather than actual removal, of phosphorus? How many times did Reel meet with that attorney? Who else, if anyone, was at those meetings?
244. As compared with point-source phosphorus reductions (that is, at municipal plants), how much phosphorus reduction will municipal payments to county agencies produce? (That is, not whether those payments will be cheaper, but how much payments under something like the CWHE Act will actually reduce phosphorus)?
Next, tomorrow: The Pilot Program.
WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.
Animation, Art, Film
Sunday Animation: Twelve Principles of Animation (Squash & Stretch, Anticipation)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Alan Becker has a video series based on the twelve principles of animation of animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. These principles, and Becker’s series about them, show how much thinking goes into even simple animated films.
Here are the first two principles, as Becker presents them –
Squash & Stretch
Anticipation
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 10.4.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Sunday in the Whippet City will be cloudy with a high of fifty-nine. Sunrise is 6:56 and sunset 6:30, for 11h 34m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 53.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Friday’s FW poll asked when a public school should suspend a student for wearing the wrong shade of green in a dress code. The overwhelming majority (92.31%) of respondents voted against suspension in these circumstances.
On this day in 1957, the Soviets launch an artificial satellite into orbit:
The Sputnik rocket was launched on 4 October 1957 at 19:28:34 UTC (5 October at the launch site[1]) from Site No.1 at NIIP-5.[54] Telemetry indicated the side boosters separated 116 seconds into the flight and the core-stage engine shut down 295.4 seconds into the flight.[52] At shut down, the 7.5 tonne core stage with PS-1 attached had attained an altitude of 223 km (139 mi) above sea level, a velocity of 7,780 m/s (25,500 ft/s) and velocity vector inclination to the local horizon of 0 degrees 24 minutes. This resulted in an initial orbit of 223 kilometres (139 mi) by 950 kilometres (590 mi), with an apogee approximately 500 kilometres (310 mi) lower than intended, and an inclination of 65.1 degrees and a period of 96.2 minutes.[52]
19.9 seconds after engine cut-off, PS-1 separated from the second stage[1] and the satellite’s transmitter was activated. These signals were detected at the IP-1 station by Junior Engineer-Lieutenant V.G. Borisov, where reception of Sputnik’s “beep-beep-beep” tones confirmed the satellite’s successful deployment. Reception lasted for two minutes, until PS-1 fell below the horizon.[29][55] The Tral telemetry system on the R-7 core stage continued to transmit and was detected on its second orbit.[1]
The designers, engineers and technicians who developed the rocket and satellite watched the launch from the range.[56] After the launch they drove to the mobile radio station to listen for signals from the satellite.[56] They waited about 90 minutes to ensure that the satellite had made one orbit and was transmitting, before Korolyov called Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.[57]
On the first orbit the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) transmitted: “As result of great, intense work of scientific institutes and design bureaus the first artificial Earth satellite has been built”.[58] The R-7 core stage, with a mass of 7.5 tonnes and a length of 26 meters, also reached Earth orbit and was visible from the ground at night as a first magnitude object following the satellite. Deployable reflective panels were placed on the booster in order to increase its visibility for tracking.[57] The satellite itself, a small, highly polished sphere, was barely visible at sixth magnitude, and thus more difficult to follow optically. A third object, the payload fairing, also achieved orbit.
The core stage of the R-7 remained in orbit for two months until 2 December 1957, while Sputnik 1 orbited until 4 January 1958, having completed 1,440 orbits of the Earth.[1]
On this day in 1862, Wisconsinites participate in the Union defense of Corinth, Mississippi (a city having been taken previously by Federal soldiers):
The Second Battle of Corinth began when Confederate forces attempted to retake Corinth, Mississippi. The 8th, 14th, 16th, 17th and 18th Wisconsin Infantry regiments, along with the 6th and 12th Wisconsin Light Artillery batteries, fought to protect the city from Confederate troops. The Union general in charge cited the 14th Wisconsin Infantry for heroic service at Corinth, calling it “the regiment to rely upon in every emergency; always cool, steady, and vigorous.” The 17th Wisconsin Infantry was composed mainly of Irish immigrants. They led a bayonet charge with the Gaelic battle cry “Faugh a ballaghl” (“Clear the way!”), which the same general called, “the most glorious charge in the campaign.”
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 10.3.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of fifty-six. Sunrise is 6:55 and sunset is 6:32, for 11h 37m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 63.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1990, West and East Germany reunite after forty-five years of Communist-supported division:
Berlin, Wednesday, Oct. 3 — Forty-five years after it was carved up in defeat and disgrace, Germany was reunited today in a midnight celebration of pealing bells, national hymns and the jubilant blare of good old German oom-pah-pah.
At the stroke of midnight Tuesday, a copy of the American Liberty Bell, a gift from the United States at the height of the cold war, tolled from the Town Hall, and the black, red and gold banner of the Federal Republic of Germany rose slowly before the Reichstag, the scarred seat of past German Parliaments.
Then the President, Richard von Weizsacker, drawing on the words of the West German Constitution, proclaimed from the steps of the Reichstag: ”In free self-determination, we want to achieve the unity in freedom of Germany. We are aware of our responsibility for these tasks before God and the people. We want to serve peace in the world in a united Europe.”
Nature, Science/Nature, Space
Canyons of a Plutonian Moon
by JOHN ADAMS •
Via Space.com.
WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN
The December 2014 Presentation
(Part 2)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Post 37 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.
In this post, I’ll consider only a portion of the public comments at the 12.16.14 meeting.
There are two reasons for a deliberate approach. First, Whitewater’s city officials (at least some of them) contend that they’ve considered this project in detail, and carefully. Those claims deserve in reply a careful review. Second, the public comments about which I’ll write today caught my attention at the time, and have been notable to me since.
Today’s questions derive from discussion beginning at the 36-minute mark, and that continued until 46:21. (The 12.16.14 discussion is embedded at the bottom of this post for ready reference.)
(Every question in this series has a unique number, assigned chronologically based on when it was asked. All the questions from When Green Turns Brown can be found in the Question Bin. Today’s questions begin with No. 223.)
At just over thirty-six minutes in (36:15), one hears the first public comment (from Jeff Knight, chair of Whitewater’s Community Development Authority, and President & CEO of a local business lobby, the Greater Whitewater Committee.)
I’ll transcribe a portion of his remarks (beginning at 37:24):
And question two I’d have is the phosphorus treatment that you’ve included in here. Other communities have done significant treatment of their phosphorus by putting it out on land so that it trickles and does its cleaning itself. What’s the process you’ve decided on the phosphorus in this? And, cause I think that’s a very expensive component of what’s being proposed. And so, have you looked what are the options on the phosphorus treatment and has the city been able to consider we’ve got a big industrial park with a lot of vacant land…there is land that could be used to treat that phosphorus. I just would like for the Common Council to understand those decisions.
223. Is Knight serious in his contention that a possible method of treatment for Whitewater is “putting it out on land so that it trickles and does its cleaning itself?”
224. Does he really think that a possible solution is spreading phosphorus on vacant land in the business park?
225. Where does Knight, after all, think that the phosphorus “trickles?”
226. On 7.15.14 – five months before this December meeting – Donohue explained the options for addressing phosphorus (actually removing it at the source or paying a charge for non-removal above regulatory-defined limits). Donohue explained those same options in this very December meeting, shortly before Knight speaks. Why doesn’t CDA Chair Knight – voluntarily speaking on this issue – know the phosphorus option that Donohue presented (and the city administration accepted) five months earlier?
227. Why doesn’t Knight understand how the method Donohue recommends – and the city administration accepted five months earlier – addresses phosphorus not by removal, but by paying a charge for non-removal? Isn’t Mr. Knight who’s the one who doesn’t understand this subject?
228. If spreading phosphorus on the ground so that it “trickles” is an effective solution, will the executive members of the Greater Whitewater Committee (among them Knight, CDA member Larry Kachel, and councilman Dr. Kidd) spread it on their lawns and properties?
229. If Whitewater wants to market the town to residential development, is it an effective marketing presentation to offer Whitewater as a town where the phosphorus plan is “putting it out on land so that it trickles and does its cleaning itself.”)
(Two points worth making: (1) I know that there’s no chance of this bizarre idea as an actual plan – the problem is that CDA Chair Knight actually suggests it, and (2) how can any community have confidence in supposed public-relations – especially directed toward attracting residential home sales – with ideas of this absurd kind?)
Next, on Sunday, 10.4.15: The December 2014 Presentation (Part 3).
WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.
Cats
Friday Catblogging: Starting at the Beginning
by JOHN ADAMS •
Poll
Friday Poll: Suspended for the Wrong Color of Green?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Should a child in a public school be suspended for wearing the wrong color of blue or green?
At a public school in New Jersey, a child was suspended over a dispute about the color of her shirt:
8-year-old Kylie and her twin sister Karlie don’t look like troublemakers, but Kylie was suspended from school. The reason, according to her mother: a violation of the dress code Monday. Their mother, Crystal, says she got a call from the vice principal at Winslow Township School 4.
“He wanted me to know that she can’t wear that shirt and if she does wear that shirt again, she would be suspended,” she told FOX 29.
The district’s policy states that shirts or blouses be white, dark green or navy blue with collars only. Kelly green is a violation. Crystal admits her conversation with the assistant principal and then the principal did get a bit heated.
“My child messed up, I messed it up for my child, and she be suspended next time for it, but to suspend a child over the shade of a shirt. I found it a little ridiculous,” she explained.
The girls missed the bus Tuesday morning, and when they arrived at school a few minutes late– properly dressed– they were met by the principal.
“She told me don’t bother to sign her in and told Kylie that she’s not in school today,” the mother explained.
“I got suspended for wearing the different color they wanted me to wear,” said Kylie. “The principal told me that I don’t have to stay here and I could leave.”
(The school, by the way, disputes parts of the story as ‘incorrect,’ but offered no explanation to a reporter.)