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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.29.18

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-four.  Sunrise is 7:04 AM and sunset 4:22 PM, for 9h 17m 55s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 54.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

 

On this day in 1929, Richard Byrd flies over the South Pole.

 

 

Recommended for reading in full:

  Rick Barrett and Andrew Mollica report Trump farm bailout checks coming to Wisconsin farmers vary from thousands to a few dollars:

Wisconsin is on track to lose more dairy farms this year than in any year since at least 2003, according to state agriculture department figures.

Wisconsin Farmers Union, based on a survey of its members, says a 55-cow dairy farm would receive a one-time payment of $725 from the Trump bailout program, but it will lose between $36,000 and $48,000 this year due to low milk prices.

An 80-cow dairy would get $889, barely enough to cover its electric bill for a month. Meanwhile, it will lose $35,000 this year.

(Emphasis added.)

  Julie K. Brown reports How a future Trump Cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime:

On a muggy October morning in 2007, Miami’s top federal prosecutor, Alexander Acosta, had a breakfast appointment with a former colleague, Washington, D.C., attorney Jay Lefkowitz.

….

His client, Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, 54, was accused of assembling a large, cult-like network of underage girls — with the help of young female recruiters — to coerce into having sex acts behind the walls of his opulent waterfront mansion as often as three times a day, the Town of Palm Beach police found.

….

Facing a 53-page federal indictment, Epstein could have ended up in federal prison for the rest of his life.

But on the morning of the breakfast meeting, a deal was struck — an extraordinary plea agreement that would conceal the full extent of Epstein’s crimes and the number of people involved.

Not only would Epstein serve just 13 months in the county jail, but the deal — called a non-prosecution agreement — essentially shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein’s sex crimes, according to a Miami Herald examination of thousands of emails, court documents and FBI records.

  Binyamin Applebaum reports For the American Economy, Storm Clouds on the Horizon:

Emerging signs of weakness in major economic sectors, including auto manufacturing, agriculture and home building, are prompting some forecasters to warn that one of the longest periods of economic growth in American history may be approaching the end of its run.

  Amie Ferris-Rotman reports Kremlin says Trump, Putin have agreed to meet at G-20 summit on Saturday:

The Kremlin said Thursday that Washington has confirmed a one-on-one meeting between President Trump and Russian leader Vladi­mir Putin at noon on Dec. 1 at the Group of 20 summit in Argentina.

  The Watchmaker:

“You look at the sky and universe … everything is chaotic and just all over the place.” “But everything is exactly in its right place.”

Agriculture, Economy, Trump

Dairy Farmers’ Struggles

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The AP reports Farm bankruptcies on the rise in Upper Midwest:

The number of farms filing for bankruptcy is increasing across the Upper Midwest, following low prices for corn, soybeans, milk and beef, according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

The analysis found that 84 farms filed for bankruptcy in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana in the 12 months that ended in June. That’s more than double the number over the same period in 2013 and 2014.

“Current price levels and the trajectory of the current trends suggest that this trend has not yet seen a peak,” said Ron Wirtz, an analyst at the Minneapolis Fed.

This federal administration promised that “we’re going to win so much. You’re going to get tired of winning. you’re going to say, ‘Please Mr. President, I have a headache. Please, don’t win so much.”

These dairy farmers now have worse than headaches, and it isn’t from winning.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.28.18

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of twenty-eight.  Sunrise is 7:03 AM and sunset 4:22 PM, for 9h 19m 25s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 65.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

 

On this day in 1520, Magellan reaches the Pacific Ocean.

 

 

Recommended for reading in full:

  Patrick Marley and Molly Back report Republicans to hold lame-duck session to limit Tony Evers and advance GOP priorities:

Republican lawmakers plan to hold a lame-duck session as early as next week to curb the incoming Democratic governor’s powers over state rules, add GOP appointees to a state board, and possibly move the 2020 presidential primary to help a conservative state Supreme Court justice.

Unlikely to be part of the session is the reason lawmakers claim to be calling it in the first place: a long-stalled $70 million subsidy package to save a Kimberly-Clark Corp. plant in the Fox Valley.

Republicans who control the Senate are still short at least six votes for that measure and may not be able to pass it, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said Tuesday.

  Dana Milbank observes The truth is finally catching up with Trump:

Trump may say that this is the “best economy” in history, that his “tariffs are the greatest.” But Americans can now see General Motors, facing some $700 million in higher steel prices because of tariffs, announcing on Monday that it is closing five factories and laying off nearly 15,000 workers. They can also see market gyrations, rising interest rates, rising debt and forecasts for slower growth.

Trump may say the Russia investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is a “hoax” by a “conflicted prosecutor gone rogue.” But, after a half-dozen convictions, Mueller’s prosecutors Monday promised a “detailed” court filing outlining lies told them by Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman. This, as The Post reported, means “prosecutors may know more about Manafort’s interactions than he realized, allowing them to catch him in alleged lies.”

Danielle Kaeding reports Climate Report Warns Of Declining Agricultural Production, Biodiversity:

A new federal report says climate change is expected to have wide-ranging impacts on the Midwest, including declines in agricultural production and biodiversity. The latest volume of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, NCA4, also details the threats climate change may pose to the region’s economy through increased flood risks and impacts to human health with degrading air and water quality.

Harry Littman asks What Was Paul Manafort Thinking?:

Two months ago, he struck a plea deal with Robert Mueller, the special counsel — he pleaded guilty but agreed to provide full and truthful information in exchange for a more lenient sentence. But according to a filing by Mr. Mueller’s team on Monday, Mr. Manafort lied to them repeatedly, and after multiple warnings. He is now in a far worse position than if he had never elected to cooperate, or if he had followed through on his agreement.

Meet Knickers, the 1,400 kg cow from Australia:

America, Asylum, Charity, Federal Government, Law, Liberty

The Assault on Asylum Seekers

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This federal administration, despite a leader who receives support from some conservative religious groups, acts against generations of legal, philosophical, and religious principles when it uses force against unarmed asylum seekers.

Father James Martin writes Stop the assault on asylum seekers:

Yesterday the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency fired tear gas at migrants trying to seek asylum in the United States at the border crossing at Tijuana. How did our country reach the point where we are tear-gassing mothers and children? One reason is because of the widespread myths about these brothers and sisters of ours.

Myth One: They are “illegals.” First, no one is an “illegal person” and seeking asylum is widely recognized as a universal human right. Current international agreements about asylum stemmed from a desire not to repeat the fate of Jews during the Second World War, who were denied entrance to many countries. And one requirement for asylum is to be physically present in the United States, which is exactly what these men, women and children from Central America are trying to do. In fact, it is illegal to dismiss asylum seekers without hearing their cases. In other words, they are trying to follow both international and U.S. law.

Myth Two: We cannot afford them. Many people believe that the United States and many European countries shelter a huge amount of refugees. This is false. The majority of the world’s refugees live in poor or middle-income nations. Eight out of 10 of the world’s refugees are sheltered by developing countries. In 2016, for example, Turkey, Pakistan and Lebanon hosted the highest number of refugees, a combined total of 5.4 million refugees. Of the 15 million refugees worldwide, 86 percent reside in developing countries. By contrast, the United States, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, is allowing only 30,000 refugees in next year. We can afford it.

Myth Three: They are mainly criminals. Claims that these migrants are criminals, that this exodus harbors terrorists from the Middle East, are unfounded. Are there a few criminals somehow mixed in? No more than with any other group in the past and that would include the immigrants that came to this country in the last 200 years: Italians, Irish, Germans and on and on. People fleeing Honduras, for example, who are mainly women and children, face some of the worst violence, inequality and corruption in the world: criminal gangs, rape and persecution, on top of poverty. There is a reason that they are risking everything to come here. They are fleeing crime, not bringing it.

So before you dismiss these people as illegals, as too expensive and as criminals, know the facts. And even if you want to dismiss these facts, remember what Jesus said about welcoming the stranger. He did not say welcome them when they had the right papers. He did not say welcome them when there was zero risk. He did not say welcome them when you could afford it. Jesus said, welcome them.

City, Economy, Government Spending, Local Government, That Which Paved the Way

The 2019 Municipal Budget

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The City of Whitewater will hold a public hearing this evening on its 2019 municipal budget.  It’s the budget for the city, at a time when a budget for the municipal government will have little chance of positively affecting the city’s economy, let alone that of even small rural townships ringing Whitewater.  The broader economic forces that grip small towns like Whitewater cannot be altered by a municipal budget, or through this Community Development Authority (as now constituted and directed).  Earlier on, at the beginning of the Great Recession, I argued for less of the municipality (city government), and more of the city (private growth without government regulation or subsidy), with some money set aside (there was never going to be much) for help for struggling families.

That would still be the right approach, but this city government, and others like it, have almost no room to divert resources: too much has been spent – and wasted, truly – on big capital projects, fly-by-night capital catalyst ideas, and look-and-feel programs that ignore how residents truly look and feel (it’s a low-income community).

In 2006 or 2007 (before the Great Recession in 12.2007), one might have said that the city’s economy faced three possible futures: a crash (highly improbable with a public campus in town), stagnation & relative decline (from too many of the wrong projects), or gradual improvement year over year (in confirmation of town notables’ boosterism).

Now, over a decade having passed, and other parts of the country having recovered well from the last recession, Whitewater faces the middle prospect of those three possibilities from a decade ago: stagnation & relative decline (continuing over the near term).  Time has held an incontrovertible referendum on the last decade’s approach.

It is a deep and profound loss that the city finds herself in this condition, but years inflated claims and happy-talk were never going to be a substitute for good policy.

Whitewater is a diverse place, with several large groups living and working alongside each other, and even as some struggle others of us are doing well.  Some have always understood that our own comfort is only that – our own.)

(The great failing of Whitewater’s self-designated leadership class has been believing that their experiences were all residents’ experiences.  There’s a difference between looking at the city and looking in a mirror.)

Yet even now, we may be hopeful about our medium and more distant future. No path is unending: relative decline – however painful in the short term for residents who always deserved better – will give way to a more realistic and productive community after present-day barnacles fall away.  There are, fortunately, green shoots slowly growing – harbingers of a more broadly prosperous community years from now. 

The City of Whitewater will soon adopt a 2019 budget, with a story or two written about it, but Whitewater has and will have the same economy before and after.

 

 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.27.18

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of twenty-five.  Sunrise is 7:02 AM and sunset 4:23 PM, for 9h 20m 57s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 76.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM tonight, with the Finance Committee meeting thereafter at approximately 7 PM.

On this day in 1882, the Ringling brothers of Baraboo, Wisconsin perform their first show to an audience (in Mazomanie).

 

 

Recommended for reading in full:

  Mitch Smith and Monica Davey report Ex-President of Michigan State Charged With Lying About Nassar Case:

Lou Anna K. Simon, the former president of Michigan State University, was charged on Tuesday with two felonies, accused of lying to the police about her knowledge of sexual abuse committed by Dr. Lawrence G. Nassar.

The charges were the latest blow against Michigan State, which employed Dr. Nassar for years as he preyed on young women, and a warning to other institutions about the consequences they could face for failing to stop abuse. As the scope of Dr. Nassar’s crimes has become clear, Michigan State leaders have been accused of ignoring warning signs, disrespecting victims, and covering up misconduct, and the university has been rocked by resignations, protests and a $500 million settlement.

  Molly Beck reports Ex-Trump adviser George Papadopoulos to serve 14-day prison sentence in Wisconsin:

A former adviser to President Donald Trump’s campaign began serving a 14-day sentence at a medium-security federal prison in Oxford, Wisconsin, on Monday.

….

Papadopoulos was sentenced in September after he pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents over whether he had contact with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign.

 Max Boot observes The GOP is now the party of neo-Confederates:

It is hard to remember that Republicans were once the Party of Lincoln. But in the 1960s they sold out their birthright to court Southern voters smarting over desegregation. In more recent years, leaders such as George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney had been trying to appeal to minority and moderate voters. But with his pandering to white grievances, Trump has abetted the rise of the neo-Confederates.

Debbie Wu reports Apple iPhone Supplier Foxconn Planning Deep Cost Cuts:

 

The contract manufacturer aims to cut 20 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) from expenses in 2019 as it faces “a very difficult and competitive year,” according to an internal document obtained by Bloomberg. The company’s spending in the past 12 months is about NT$206 billion ($6.7 billion). The shares of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., as Foxconn is known in Taiwan and Asia, rose less than 1 percent in early trade in Taipei on Thursday.

 NASA’s InSight lander has now sent back pictures from Mars:

City, Economy

Low Growth as Decline

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Forecasters are understandably interested in when America will experience another recession, but in Trump and the slowing economy, Jared Bernstein observes that a declining rate of growth can feel like a recession to those who experience the decline:

If I told you the real GDP growth rate was going to fall from 3.5 to 1.5 percent, you might not love that, but it probably doesn’t sound too scary. But if I told you growth was going to flip from 1.5 to -0.5 percent, you might run from the room screaming “recession!” Yet, in both cases, the decline in the growth rate was the same two percentage points.

I get it: Falling below zero isn’t anybody’s idea of a good time, but most people don’t think in GDP terms, and the effect of slower growth can be almost as bad as “negative growth.” For example, one thing that will happen if GDP slows as much as expected is that the unemployment rate will (after a lag) reverse course and start rising.

Bernstein’s analysis doesn’t only apply to national trends; it’s useful to explain Whitewater’s economic condition.  A community that, year after year, remains a low-income community will experience relative decline (as against percentage gains elsewhere) even if wages don’t fall in absolute terms.

Looking at Whitewater only by whether her economy will collapse as it once did (it won’t) ignores the more probable challenge that a low-wage community faces: not absolute, but relative, decline.

Babbittry, City, Culture, Local Government, Politics, School District, University

The Beauty & Opportunity of Ordinary Time

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In the calendar of the Church, Ordinary Time is that part of the year between the seasons of Advent, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost.  Perhaps it seems less momentous to some, but Ordinary Time is no less important, offering as it does “time for growth and maturation.” Far from being a lesser time, I find it beautiful and filled with opportunity. Less noticed, perhaps, but certainly not less important.  People live throughout a whole year, and not merely in particular seasons.  Advent approaches, and beautiful it always is, but the Ordinary Time to follow is no less important.

For policymakers, the secular equivalent of Ordinary Time (and it’s quite a climbdown, by the way, as the state will never be so important as private life) is the time without momentous events – without projects, budget hearings, or elections. However important projects, budget hearings, and elections are, they’re only part of the year.

Old Whitewater – a state of mind, not a person – has never seemed to care much for the secular equivalent of Ordinary Time: policy in the city has been clustered around big moments more than best practices, announcements over daily actions, and milestones over the distance between the miles.

That’s why something like after the referendum is better – for everyone – than before the referendum, or after the budget is better than before the budget, so to speak.

Now anyone who’s been long in this town knows that Old Whitewater prefers a high and narrow perimeter fence, where a few people set the terms of discussion.  From this perspective, mention of discussion and debate in ordinary life, outside the agenda of a few, truly looks more like a threat than an opportunity. It’s a measure of Old Whitewater’s social and cultural myopia that it sees America – vibrant, dynamic, inquisitive – this way.  Truly, it’s a deep misunderstanding of America’s political, legal, and social heritage.

Old Whitewater’s high water mark was some years ago, perhaps around 2007, just before the Great Recession began.  It’s taken years for the effects of that recession – effects still felt across Whitewater – to erode the boosterism that gripped the city in that earlier time.  Some still try to carry on as though nothing has changed these years since, but theirs is a feeble and futile effort.  Erosion works slowly yet decisively all the same.

America is admirable in her centuries-long development of liberty – of thought, discussion, and action.  Our best times – of hope and opportunity – aren’t only grand times – they’re also ordinary times.

There are still significant policy matters to address (at the university most notably), but not everything is a big event.

In the ordinary moments yet ahead, there’s good and positive work to be done: fixing up this, picking up that, tidying all up.

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, November 27th, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Ocean’s Eight

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This Tuesday, November 27th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of Ocean’s Eight  @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building:

Ocean’s Eight (Action/Comedy/Crime)
Tuesday, November 27 @ 12:30 pm
Rated PG-13. 1 hour, 50 minutes (2018)

Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) gathers an all-female crew to pull off an impossible heist at New York’s starstudded annual Met Gala. Including Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Helena Bonham Carter, Rihanna, Dakota Fanning, and Marlo Thomas.

One can find more information about Ocean’s Eight at the Internet Movie Database.

Enjoy.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.26.18

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty.  Sunrise is 7:01 AM and sunset 4:23 PM, for 9h 22m 33s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 85.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Library Board’s Personnel Committee meets at 5 PM today.

On this day in 1838, the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature assembles in Madison for the first time.

 

 

Recommended for reading in full:

  Rick Barrett reports Wisconsin dairy farmers barely hanging on as crisis deepens with no end in sight:

Wisconsin is on track to lose more dairy farms this year than in any year since at least 2003, according to state Agriculture Department figures for dairy producer licenses.

As of Nov. 1, the dairy state had lost 660 cow herds from a year earlier, and the number of herds was down nearly 49 percent from 15 years ago. The number of dairy cows in Wisconsin has remained steady even as the number of farms has fallen. That’s because the remaining dairy operations are, in many cases, much bigger. But even some of the bigger farms have not survived.

Tory Newmyer writes Trump says he wants to cut the deficit. His track record says otherwise:

President Trump says he wants to get serious about tackling the deficit. But he also wants to spend big on infrastructure, slash taxes for the middle class and build a Mexican border wall. He won’t allow cuts to Social Security or Medicare. And he is demanding a mostly hands-off approach to military funding. 

In other words, the president isn’t actually serious about tackling the deficit. Trump’s conflicting instincts on the matter are laid bare in a Sunday report from The Post’s Josh Dawsey and Damian Paletta. The takeaway: The red ink exploding on his watch has spooked the president — just not enough to force the sort of hard choices that will rein it in.

Anton Troianovski reports To avoid sanctions, Kremlin goes off the grid:

The Kremlin has for years bankrolled an array of pro-Russian breakaway states within the former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova. For Moscow, the goals could not be bigger — rebuilding Russia’s influence and countering the region’s drift toward the West.

The network of semi-states has become so important for Russia that an off-the-grid financial system now ties some of them together, bridging hundreds of miles and circumventing international sanctions.

Javier Blas reports Texas Is About to Create OPEC’s Worst Nightmare:

An infestation of dots, thousands of them, represent oil wells in the Permian basin of West Texas and a slice of New Mexico. In less than a decade, U.S. companies have drilled 114,000. Many of them would turn a profit even with crude prices as low as $30 a barrel.

OPEC’s bad dream only deepens next year, when Permian producers expect to iron out distribution snags that will add three pipelines and as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day.

 How Close Are We to Completely Mapping the Ocean?:

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.25.18

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-six, with snowfall in the afternoon and evening.  Sunrise is 7:00 AM and sunset 4:24 PM, for 9h 24m 12s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 92.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

 

On this day in 1863, Wisconsin units are victorious at the Battle of Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga, Tennessee:

Fourteen Wisconsin units — seven Wisconsin Infantry regiments and seven Wisconsin Light Artillery batteries — participated in breaking the siege at Chattanooga.

 

Recommended for reading in full:

 Peter Slevin reports Anti-Trump protests gave way to local fervor that helped turn Wisconsin back to blue:

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — Two years ago, before Donald Trump was elected, Anna Rybicki would not have been seated at the dining room table at her home on Rust Street, devising a school reform strategy with five allies. She would not have attended a three-day community organizing workshop or made a pitch to the school board.

“It has changed my life, him getting elected,” said Rybicki, 39, a lawyer who has been a stay-at-home mother since 2011. “I never cried; I mobilized. That’s what felt good to me. I went to every meeting of everything.”

Since the eruption of nationwide anti-Trump protests in January 2017, a central question has been whether the energy would persist. The signs in Wisconsin so far have been positive for Democrats: They unexpectedly won a state Supreme Court race in April and flipped a reliably Republican state Senate seat in June. On Nov. 6, they defeated GOP Gov. Scott Walker for the first time in four tries. The statewide turnout percentage was among the highest in the country.

  Rich Kremer reports CWD spreads on deer and elk farms as Wisconsin’s control efforts stumble:

Since 2013, when the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) began to let some captive deer facilities with infected animals continue operating, additional cases of CWD have developed within those facilities, according to interviews and documents obtained under the state’s Open Records Law.

Anna Newtsova writes Inside the Mystery of the Dead Russian Spy Chief:

“After Korobov did not meet with Putin at the hundredth anniversary ceremony, I became curious what was going on with the head of GRU,” Kanev told The Daily Beast. The general must have been under a lot of pressure, since his agency was accused of  “complete incompetence” and “boundless sloppiness,”

  Jim Tankersley reports A Winter-Coat Heavyweight Gives Trump’s Trade War the Cold Shoulder:

Mr. Trump’s use of tariffs as a cudgel to revitalize manufacturing in the United States is forcing changes across large multinational companies, though they may not always be the changes the president seeks. Harley-Davidson and Micron are moving production to factories in Europe or parts of Asia, while other companies have put off expansion plans amid trade uncertainty.

Trying Chicken Cakes at Macao’s Michelin-Recommended Bakery:

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.24.18

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of forty-four.  Sunrise is 6:58 AM and sunset 4:24 PM, for 9h 25m 55s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

 

On this day in 1859, Darin publishes On the Origin of Species.  On this day in 1959, I-90 opens to traffic between Janesville and Beloit.  The latter, it turns out, moves at about the same speed as the evolutionary forces described in the former.

 

Recommended for reading in full:

Tory Newmyer reports Wall Street predicts economy slowing dramatically as 2020 nears:

More than a third of top forecasters believe the U.S. economy will enter a recession in 2020; and a new Reuters poll of economists found they think the probability of a recession in the next two years is rising, to a median 35 percent. (The Fed projects GDP will slow to 2.5 percent next year, a 2 percent in 2020, before slipping to 1.8 percent in the longer run.)

(Emphasis in original.)

 Ron Brownstein observes California Has Become a Crisis for the Republicans:

For years, the state’s massive congressional delegation was highly competitive, but not anymore. Of 53 House seats, Democrats now hold at least 45.

….

The GOP’s retreat in California long predated Trump, but there’s no question he has intensified and accelerated it. In the past two years, California House Republicans, under pressure from then–Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, compounded their risk by voting with Trump more reliably than their Republican counterparts in other blue-leaning coastal states such as New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

“They bet on Trump and they bet wrong,” says John J. Pitney, a Claremont McKenna University political scientist and former aide at the Republican National Committee.

Margaret Sullivan writes Embattled and in over his head, Mark Zuckerberg should — at least — step down as Facebook chairman:

Leaders — capable leaders — don’t do what Zuckerberg has done in the face of disaster that they themselves have presided over.

They don’t hide and deny.

They don’t blame-shift.

And they don’t insist on speaking in the worst kind of fuzzy corporate cliches.

  Jennifer Rubin observes If Republicans don’t want to be called racists …

When a former Trump campaign adviser tried defending Hyde-Smith [a GOP candidate with a love for things Confederate] by claiming this was all part of “the outrage culture,” Carpenter countered, “It’s wrong when someone says something so provocative that you blame the people who are offended.” She bluntly declared, “If Republicans want to quit being accused of being racist, they have to stop saying racist things.”

Consider The secret physics of dandelion seeds:

Cats

A Rare Look Inside the Secret Lives of Cougar Families

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Scientists studying wild cougars, also known as mountain lions, in northwest Wyoming have been given a glimpse into the secret, snuggling social lives of the big cats’ families.

A recent den study conducted by Panthera’s Teton Cougar Project analyzed the comings and goings of hard-working and affectionate mountain lion mothers using motion-triggered video cameras and collars that track the cats’ location using GPS. They learned new details about kittens’ lives inside the den and how intensely their mothers care for them. Scientists hope the insights—and awwww-inspiring video clips—might help protect vulnerable kittens from hunting.

Mountain lions are also called cougars, pumas, and catamounts — these all refer to the same cat species, Puma concolor. Based on the study’s observations, after giving birth, a typical mountain lion mother stays tucked into her den with her litter of up to five kittens for their first ten days. She purrs almost constantly to communicate with her babies, whose eyes open at about a week old. (See more video from inside a mountain lion family.)

Via A Rare Look Inside the Secret Lives of Cougar Families @ National Geographic.