NASA is fifty years old today, but it is not a happy anniversary. NASA’s human exploration program is uninspiring, and her next-generation spacecraft is behind schedule already. America has changed much in the last fifty years, and the high-tech cachet of NASA has passed to dozens of private American companies. Google, for example, is commemorating…

The modern trend toward the familiar use of a first name and the grandiose description of municipal officials as visionaries combines to produce unintentionally funny results. An example is when a member of our Common Council, without irony, can describe our city manager’s plan for Whitewater, Wisconsin as the “…vision of Kevin.” The combination of…

When an official attacks the lawful speech rights of a citizen, he opposes his self-interest, in career, in an inflated view of himself, or whatever limited need, against the very liberty of a fellow citizen. He rationalizes – usually in the most feeble, embarrassing way – that his needs are the needs of all the…

Readers to Free Whitewater know that officials in Whitewater, WI conducted a months-long search to learn the identity of an anonymous blogger, only to confront the wrong man! When apparently thin-skinned officials in Memphis try to overcome the Constitutional right of anonymous free speech, they should and must be required to provide a compelling reason.…

A noted Memphis blogger, and a resident of Whitewater, both alerted me to official transgressions against First Amendment rights in Memphis, TN. Another Memphis blogger, an anonymous critic of police leadership failures in Memphis, is facing a lawsuit from the city and its police director, designed to force an ISP to divulge his or her…

Much has been made of LP presidential nominee Bob Barr’s focus on criticism of Senator McCain as a way to attract otherwise Republican voters. (McCain’s likely judicial picks are just one source of complaint.) It’s a backwards tactic – if Barr wants to attract voters on the right, he needs to show that he can…

We have a city website and city newsletter, a news and sports website that often reproduces city announcements, and a weekly local newspaper that does the same. (The Royal Purple showed only slight inquisitiveness under its outgoing staff.) There is seldom any background, any description of how people actually conduct themselves, from these media. Solid…

I am not sure how many people watch public meetings on our cable access channel (Station 13), but the number is sure to be smaller after the cable provider moves the station to a different channel. (This was a decision of the cable company and not our local station.) Fewer viewers overall will surely mean…

Months ago, I wrote about former Gov. Schaefer of Maryland, who disgraced himself and his state by trying to intimidate lawful political protesters. I asked if something like that could happen in Whitewater, knowing at the time that is was possible. Sure enough, officials in Whitewater went down that path. What’s happened in Maryland, though,…

Whitewater is a small town, with a population only over fourteen thousand. Not far around us, though, are larger cities, and corporations, with intricate hierarchies. We have joined the modern and modernizing trend toward greater specialization, in committees, titles, and departments. Our culture has not kept pace with our specialization – BAU (business as usual)…

Quick updates on the Bob Barr campaign. (Barr is a former Republican congressman who received the Libertarian Party nomination for president.) Barr’s campaign website shows that he has raised only about a half million dollars so far – a paltry sum. Meanwhile, the GOP is finding that when it asks for online suggestions, its most…

Here’s a question for today: What will be different about the Planning Commission meeting tonight? The answer this evening…

Yesterday, I posted about Cost of Government Day – the day when an average American has worked long enough to pay his share of federal, state, and local government spending and regulations. It takes more than half a year. This astonishing burden is worth remembering the next time a public official calls for a partnership…

Reason magazine yesterday had a post observing July 16th as Cost of Government Day. It’s that day of the year when the average American has worked during enough of the year so that his cumulative gross income will pay his share of the cost of federal, state, and local spending and regulations. The American Taxpayers…