Sadly, yes:
Steve Schmidt, who managed Arizona Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential race, offered a far harsher assessment of the Cain moment.
“That Cain’s candidacy was taken seriously for longer than a nano-second in a time of genuine crisis for the country raises fundamental questions about the health of the political process and the Republican party,” Schmidt said.
Via The Washington Post.
Balancing the budget on the backs of the vulnerable:
The Survival Coalition of Wisconsin Disability Group sent a letter this week to federal education officials and members of the states congressional delegation, urging them to stick with federal rules requiring school districts not to reduce the amount of money they spend on special education.
Via Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
See, also CESA 1 letter in favor of waiving federal safeguards for the disabled and Survival Coalition of Wisconsin Disability Group letter supporting existing safeguards.
Cross-posted at Daily Wisconsin.
It’s December — already — and Thanksgiving’s just a pleasant memory. However enjoyable that day (and it is), there are (to my knowledge) no popular Thanksgiving songs. Thanksgiving is a quiet holiday. The same cannot be said of Christmas (a naturally more exuberant holiday), or anything in December, for that matter. This is not a quiet month.
What’s your favorite holiday song? I’ve a poll with a few possibilities (from a list of popular radio songs), and space for comments to this post.
Comments will be moderated against profanity or trolls, but otherwise have at it.
My favorite: O Holy Night.
My favorite: The Cats of Ulthar.
Good morning.
Whitewater’s Christmas parade is tonight at 6 PM, and the day beforehand will be sunny with a high temperature of thirty-six.
The Wisconsin Historical Society remembers one of Wisconsin’s lowest moments:
1954 – McCarthy Censured by Senate
On December 2, 1954, the United States Senate voted to censure Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. Declaring his behavior “contrary to senatorial traditions,” the 1954 Senate resolution officially condemned McCarthy’s reign of anti-communist terror.
I wouldn’t call his conduct a reign of terror, but an abuse of political power worthy of censure, surely.
Somewhere tonight, Gov. Romney’s smiling:
“Really poor children, in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works so they have no habit of showing up on Monday,” Gingrich claimed.
“They have no habit of staying all day, they have no habit of I do this and you give me cash unless it is illegal,” he added.
Via Fox News
It’s not health, but favoring some businesses over others (and over consumers) that’s the concern of Connecticut’s regulators:
Here’s the description of the Institute for Justice’s video:
Teeth-whitening services are popular and increasingly available at spas, salons and shopping malls. This has been a boon for consumers because these businesses offer whitening services at a much lower cost than dentists do, often charging less than 25 percent of what a dentist would charge for similar results.
There is one group that is not smiling about these new, low-cost teeth-whitening services: the Connecticut Dental Commission. In June, the Commission ruled it is a crime punishable by up to five years in jail or $25,000 in civil penalties for anyone but a licensed dentist to offer teeth-whitening services, even if the customers apply the product to their own teeth.
Teeth-whitening products are regulated by the FDA as cosmetics, which mean anyone—even a child—can purchase them and apply them to his or her own teeth without a prescription and without supervision or instruction.
The Dental Commission’s ruling has nothing to do with public health or safety and everything to do with protecting licensed dentists from honest competition. more >>
I’ve featured songs from Ben Sommer’s latest album, Super Brain, but a proper review of the entire album is in order. I liked and favorably reviewed Ben’s first album, america’d, and so was disposed to expect another solid effort. And yet, earlier-album familiarity nothwithstanding, Super Brain surprises and impresses, exceeding Sommer’s earlier work.
First, for those who liked america’d, the key difference in Super Brain’s dozen songs: the former album was more political than Sommer’s new one. Where america’d offered commentary on the state of the nation, Super Brain casts a wider glance, including one backward, in topics less uniquely American, but more universal.
There’s still political commentary here (Militarism could not be otherwise), but there’s a broader collection of themes.
There’s no right or wrong in the political or apolitical approach: each has its place.
Still, that’s neither here nor there compared with Super Brain’s deepest strength: this is an impressively and astutely eclectic mix of songs and topics. Ben may be, by his own account, an edgy, prog rock musician, but (it is to be hoped) no one is just one thing, spontaneously generated and waiting at the microphone. Sommer’s clearly isn’t one thing, but is instead a sharp and profoundly knowledgeable musician.
That’s the strength and fun of Super Brain: it’s a tour, making its mark rather than making a particular statement.
How could anyone — anyone not pinched and narrow — not enjoy, for example, I Married a Prostitute? It’s just wonderful, and I’ll not call it a guilty pleasure as it’s simply a pleasure. Melodically and lyrically, it’s a treat.
On this same album, just a few tracks later, one finds Deo Gracias Anglia, previously premiered here at FREE WHITEWATER. That’s an astonishing range for a musician, and evidence that Super Brain’s not just a title, but a description. A quick note about this Sommer’s version of Deo Gracias Anglia – it says much and says much favorably that when Sommers offered a track to premiere at FW, he chose so wisely and fittingly. Behind this eclectic album lies real intuition.
Then, back to the lead track Young Turks, for something unlike either of these two:
Happily and easily recommended —
Adams’s rating, out of four stars:
Good morning.
A new months ends an old year. There’s a chance of snow in Whitewater today with a high temperature of forty, but a greater chance overnight tonight. There’s no chance of snow for San Francisco today, but instead a likelihood of breezy skies with a high of sixty-six.
For a while — where a while is defined as about two weeks — the national heavyweight wrestling champ hailed from Marshfied, Wisconsin:
1906 – Fred Beell Crowned Heavyweight Champ
On this date Fred Beell, of Marshfield, Wisconsin, won the American heavyweight wrestling championship in New Orleans, taking two of three falls from Frank Gotch. Beell’s reign was brief. Sixteen days later, he lost a rematch to Gotch. Beell’s victory was the only match that Gotch lost from 1904 until his death in 1918. [Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
And yet, and yet – however brief his reign, he was the national champion. Well done.
Too, too funny — libertarian Ron Paul hits Newt Gingrich from the right, using conservatives (many of whom Paul himself rejects!), to disparage Gingrich as a money-grubbing, shifty, business-as-usual politician.
Gingrich’s problem is that Paul’s right: Gingrich really is a money-grubbing, shifty, business-as-usual politician.
The potato state bests America’s Dairyland in common sense and consumer choice:
“There were a lot of illegal raw-milk sales throughout the state,” Patten said. “Across-the-fence sales, let’s say.”
So, in early 2010, instead of drawing guns and raiding those operations, the state of Idaho–with the help of raw-milk advocates and a less-enthusiastic dairy industry–modified the regulations to make it easier for small raw-milk producers to go legit.
“After a lot of consternation and battling back and forth, we kind of created what we call the Small Farm Exemption,” Patten said. “And the compromise was that you could milk up to three cows or seven goats or seven sheep, and you could sell milk for human consumption.”
The Small Farm Exemption–also called the Small Herd Exemption–greatly streamlined Idaho’s raw-milk regulatory process. If a dairyman met the requirements, emphasis was moved from an expensive Grade A barn, with all its shiny stainless steel, to little more than a monthly testing of the milk itself.
Via Boise Weekly.
Update, 12.3.11: Although there’s ample logging, it may not amount to everything. See, Carrier IQ hit with privacy lawsuits as more security researchers weigh in and Reasons Not to Panic About the Carrier IQ Controversy.
Fascinating, yet — of course — deeply troubling:
The Android developer who raised the ire of a mobile-phone monitoring company last week is on the attack again, producing a video of how the Carrier IQ software secretly installed on millions of mobile phones reports most everything a user does on a phone.
Though the software is installed on most modern Android, BlackBerry and Nokia phones, Carrier IQ was virtually unknown until 25-year-old Trevor Eckhart of Connecticut analyzed its workings, revealing that the software secretly chronicles a user’s phone experience — ostensibly so carriers and phone manufacturers can do quality control.
But now he’s released a video actually showing the logging of text messages, encrypted web searches and, well, you name it.
Good morning.
Wednesday: It’s a cloudy day with a high temperature of thirty-nine ahead for Whitewater, a sunny day with a high of seventy-five for Los Angeles, and a mostly sunny day with a high of fifty-four in New York.
If you’ve ever wanted to help identify whale sounds, then Whale.fm is just the website for you:
The folks at Zooniverse have a new citizen science project for you to play with — matching up whalesong to try and analyze the watery leviathans’ language.
Sounds have been collected from both pilot whales and killer whales (both of which are actually species of dolphin). Each family of killer whales appears to have a distinct “dialect” that it uses to communicate, and closely related families appear to share calls. Biologists have begun to categorize those noises, but the species’ communication is still poorly understood….
If you head over to Whale.fm, you’ll be presented with a large whale call, placed on a Google map, and 36 smaller possible matches. Your task is to pick the one that’s closest to the original call, with the help of visualizations of what the audio sounds like.
