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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.8.16

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Our first work week of the years ends with rain (not snow!), and a high of thirty-nine. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset 4:38, for 9h 13m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1877, Crazy Horse fights his last battle:

On January 8, 1877, General Miles found Crazy Horse’s camp along Montana’s Tongue River. U.S. soldiers opened fire with their big wagon-mounted guns, driving the Indians from their warm tents out into a raging blizzard. Crazy Horse and his warriors managed to regroup on a ridge and return fire, but most of their ammunition was gone, and they were reduced to fighting with bows and arrows. They managed to hold off the soldiers long enough for the women and children to escape under cover of the blinding blizzard before they turned to follow them.

Though he had escaped decisive defeat, Crazy Horse realized that Miles and his well-equipped cavalry troops would eventually hunt down and destroy his cold, hungry followers. On May 6, 1877, Crazy Horse led approximately 1,100 Indians to the Red Cloud reservation near Nebraska’s Fort Robinson and surrendered. Five months later, a guard fatally stabbed him after he allegedly resisted imprisonment by Indian policemen.

Here’s the Friday game in Puzzability‘s Sweet Sixteen series:

This Week’s Game — January 4-8
Sweet Sixteen
Happy 2016! For each day this week, we’ll give an eight-letter word or phrase and a trivia question. The 16-letter answer to that question (a title, name, or place) uses only the eight letters given.
Example:
HISTOGEN: What Rod Stewart song was his first U.S. #1 after “Maggie May,” five years later?
Answer:
“Tonight’s the Night”
What to Submit:
Submit the 16-letter title, name, or place (as “Tonight’s the Night” in the example) for your answer.
Friday, January 8
ORGANIST: What song about the weather from The Fantasticks was recorded by Barbra Streisand for her debut album?

 

Food, Good Ideas, Health

Caffeinated Pastry’s Only a Matter of Time

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Alternative title : Biophysicist-Inventor Possibly One of the Greatest Americans Ever.

Thanks to a biophysicist, caffeinated muffins could be coming soon to a coffee shop near you — and they’ll also be loaded with antioxidants. Professor Daniel Perlman of Boston-area Brandeis University has invented a coffee flour milled from par-baked green coffee beans that can be used in baked goods; a patent for the process was approved in December.

As the Boston Globe notes, a number of studies have been done in recent years focusing on the health benefits of coffee, but while many researchers agree that a few cups a day is good for you, they have yet to pinpoint what exactly is responsible for coffee’s beneficial effects — though they suspect it may have something to do with “chlorogenic acid (CGA), an antioxidant that appears to modulate how rapidly the body breaks down glucose.”

Perlman’s newly patented process involves par-baking green coffee beans at a relatively lower temperature for a short period of time, which retains the CGA that’s typically lost in the regular coffee roasting process. The resulting light-colored beans are no good for brewing and drinking, so instead, he turned them into a finely milled flour that has up to four times as much CGA as regular roasted coffee beans.

Via Newly Patented Coffee Flour Could Fuel Caffeinated Baked Goods @ Eater.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.7.16

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Good morning, Whitewater.

We’re seven days into the new year, and the seventh of those days arrives in whitewater with an even chance of rain and a mild high of thirty-six. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:37, for 9h 12m 28s of daytime. The moon today is a waning crescent with 7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Every so often, someone will write to me and ask why the Daily Bread post often includes moments in history from other places in Wisconsin or America.  (Thanks, as always, for those questions.)  There are two reasons: first because it seems to me to be interesting, and second because I believe a hyper-local focus without daily reflection on events in faraway places leads to myopia.  Local policy is made better when one begins with a reminder of the obvious: that we are no mere place of beauty, but a place of beauty made incomparably lovelier by its connection to a continental culture and civilization.

On this day in 1945, General Montgomery unjustifiably claims credit for himself, but eleven days later Prime Minister Churchill rightly sets the record straight:

On this day, British Gen. Bernard Montgomery gives a press conference in which he all but claims complete credit for saving the Allied cause in the Battle of the Bulge. He was almost removed from his command because of the resulting American outcry….

Montgomery had already earned the ire of many American officers because of his cautiousness in the field, arrogance off the field, and willingness to disparage his American counterparts. The last straw was Montgomery’s whitewashing of the Battle of the Bulge facts to assembled reporters in his battlefield headquarters—he made his performance in the Ardennes sound not only more heroic but decisive, which necessarily underplayed the Americans’ performance. Since the loss of American life in the battle was tremendous and the surrender of 7,500 members of the 106th Infantry humiliating, Gen. Omar Bradley complained loudly to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who passed the complaints on to Churchill. On January 18, Churchill addressed Parliament and announced in no uncertain terms that the “Bulge” was an American battle—and an American victory.

On this day in 1901, Fighting Bob first takes office as Gov. La Follette:

1901 – Robert Marion La Follette Inaugurated as Governor

On this date Robert M. La Follette was inaugurated as governor after winning the November 6, 1900 election. La Follette was born in Dane County in 1855. A Wisconsin Law School graduate and three-term member of congress, La Follette was renowned for his oratorical style. He was the first Wisconsin-born individual to serve as governor.

Here’s the Thursday game from Puzzability‘s week-long Sweet Sixteen series:

This Week’s Game — January 4-8
Sweet Sixteen
Happy 2016! For each day this week, we’ll give an eight-letter word or phrase and a trivia question. The 16-letter answer to that question (a title, name, or place) uses only the eight letters given.
Example:
HISTOGEN: What Rod Stewart song was his first U.S. #1 after “Maggie May,” five years later?
Answer:
“Tonight’s the Night”
What to Submit:
Submit the 16-letter title, name, or place (as “Tonight’s the Night” in the example) for your answer.
Thursday, January 7
CORDELIA: What luxury car was appropriately developed for the manufacturer’s fiftieth anniversary?

 

Assault Awareness & Prevention, Crime

Larry Wilmore of The Nightly Show on Bill Cosby’s Arraignment

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At the conclusion of his remarks, Wilmore observes that

“Even if he doesn’t get convicted, this is still a good thing, because for too long, the women who have accused him of this crime were not being listened to, because they were being silenced by a powerful man and a complicit culture. And, now, finally, regardless of what happens next, they’re being heard. And that’s a start.”

Yes, it is.

School District

The Next-Best Thing

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Understandably, the best outcome for any public body is to have good candidates, who become good incumbents, who then produce good policy. This should be obvious to anyone: candidates, residents, bloggers, etc.

A next-best outcome would be the opportunity to draw clear contrasts between good policy and bad, so much the better to illustrate alternatives.

When that next-best outcome is so predictable – from the greatest possible distance – it’s that much better.

Other than the rising of the sun each morning, there could be nothing in town more predictable than that the Whitewater Unified School Board seats would be uncontested, and that Jim Stewart would be running for one of them. I’ve previously written about Mr. Stewart’s 2015 candidacy.

As a policy matter, just about anyone else would have been a better choice than Mr. Stewart; as a matter of drawing contrasts between good policy and bad, his tenure will offer a three years’ long opportunity to do so. (A cynical blogger – and I’m not – would have entitled this post Christmas Comes Again, in January.)

Big-spending but anti-labor is probably the worst policy position for Whitewater, but a political legacy of that sort offers the next-best thing for others to draw clear distinctions between good policy and bad.

There are difficult choices ahead for the Whitewater Schools (and other districts), although they can be managed.

What circumstances don’t offer in candidates they will in commentary.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.6.16

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Midweek in the Whippet City brings a mostly cloudy day with a high of thirty-two. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:36 for 9h 11m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 13.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

It may be cloudy, but that doesn’t mean a good day doesn’t await.  I’m an optimist about our future, but even as an optimist some days seem notably promising.

Whitewater’s Board of Zoning Appeals meets this morning at 8:30 AM.

This is the week for the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  It’s a gadget-geek cornucopia, and The Verge has coverage of the events.  Here’s a look at a some of the goings on:

On this day in 1921, some women in Janesville commit themselves to a policy of abhorrence (and an abhorrent policy):

1921 – Janesville Women Abhor Salacious Entertainment

On this date the Janesville Federation of Women decided to “censor” movies and vaudeville in the city. Members of this organization praised and promoted what they considered “better offerings.” They were zealously critical towards those of a “salacious” nature. No follow-up ever determined whether the women were successful in their quest or if the increased publicity for “salacious” shows backfired. [Source:Janesville Gazette]

Here’s the Wednesday game from Puzzability:

This Week’s Game — January 4-8
Sweet Sixteen
Happy 2016! For each day this week, we’ll give an eight-letter word or phrase and a trivia question. The 16-letter answer to that question (a title, name, or place) uses only the eight letters given.
Example:
HISTOGEN: What Rod Stewart song was his first U.S. #1 after “Maggie May,” five years later?
Answer:
“Tonight’s the Night”
What to Submit:
Submit the 16-letter title, name, or place (as “Tonight’s the Night” in the example) for your answer.
Wednesday, January 6
BALUSTER: What W.C. Handy song is named for a historic thoroughfare in Memphis, Tennessee?

City, Good Ideas, Law, Science/Nature

The Hon. Alex Kozinski on Good Science

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The Hon. Alex Kozinski is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  The Ninth Circuit has jurisdiction over most federal appellate matters in the western continental United States.  Judge Kozinski is nationally know among members of the bench, and served as chief judge of the Ninth Circuit for many years (2007-2014).

One of his finest accomplishments (and at sixty-five he’s still busy as judge and legal scholar) is his thoughtful defense of exacting standards for expert studies at trial.

To be a defender of exacting standards requires that one be an opponent of junk science, crackpot theories, and shoddy studies.  That’s the Whitewater aspect of this: Americans can and should do better than the low standards local publications set for policymaking and policy studies.

In the audio clip above, Judge Kozinski speaks (last fall) to the Cato Institute about the need for sound reasoning in criminal matters.  Early in the clip, he mentions a motion – a Daubert motion, following Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993) – used to exclude expert testimony that falls below an acceptable standard as Federal Rule of Evidence 702 requires.  Daubert was a civil case, and it’s Judge Kozinski’s point that in criminal matters a Daubert standard in favor of reason – and against junk science – hasn’t been applied as often it should be.

We could use a Daubert standard for local government projects around here; even Daubert-lite would be a big improvement.

Adventure, Faraway Places, Film

Film: Nomads of Mongolia

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Nomads of Mongolia from Brandon Li on Vimeo. 

Life in Western Mongolia is an adventure. Training eagles to hunt, herding yaks, and racing camels are just a few of the daily activities of the nomadic Kazakh people. I spent a few weeks living with them and experiencing one of the most unique cultures in the world. Saddle up and enjoy the ride.

Select clips from this video are available for licensing. For inquiries: licensing@unscripted.com
licensing.unscripted.com

Original score by Max LL
www.maxll.ca

Follow me on Instagram: @brandon_l_li

Bali: vimeo.com/136405903
Tokyo: vimeo.com/129171397
North India: vimeo.com/116044343
Barcelona: vimeo.com/99401340
Dubai: vimeo.com/88224399
Turkey: vimeo.com/106755674
South India: vimeo.com/113689725
Arabia: vimeo.com/86774980
Las Vegas: vimeo.com/147458521
Australia: vimeo.com/98652051
Guam: vimeo.com/138830005

camera:
Sony A7rii
Sony RX10ii
GoPro Hero 4 Black

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.5.16

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday in town will be mostly sunny with a high of thirty.  Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:35, for 9h 10m 10s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 20.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

An ad hoc group from the Urban Forestry Commission (Heritage Tree Committee) meets today at 4:30 PM.

 

On this day in 1933, construction begins on the Golden Gate Bridge:

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate strait, the one-mile-wide (1.6 km), three-mile-long (4.8 km) channel between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to Marin County, bridging both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 across the strait. The bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco, California, and the United States. It has been declared one of the Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.[7]

The Frommers travel guide considers the Golden Gate Bridge “possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world”.[8] It opened in 1937 and was, until 1964, the longest suspension bridge main span in the world, at 4,200 feet (1,300 m)….

Construction began on January 5, 1933.[9] The project cost more than $35 million,[29] completing ahead of schedule and under budget.[30] The Golden Gate Bridge construction project was carried out by the McClintic-Marshall Construction Co., a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel Corporation founded by Howard H. McClintic and Charles D. Marshall, both of Lehigh University.

Today is the birthday of a socialist whose supposedly successful community proved – predictably – anything but successful:

1813 – Utopian Community Leader Warren Chase Born

On this date the founder of a Fourierite Utopian community in what is now Ripon was born. Their inspiration came from the writings of Charles Fourier, a French Socialist who urged the rebuilding of society from its foundation as the only cure for economic ills such as the depression of 1837. The idea was supported by Horace Greely in New York and caught the eye of Warren Chase. Chase and others built a successful, non-religious communal society in which everyone received wages according to their skill, need, and work ethic.

The community reached their greatest population (180) in 1845 but soon dissipated when members began moving toward agriculture as an economic tool. Families gradually left the community to live in their own houses and work their own land in the same area. In 1850, the community disbanded and $40,000 in assets was divided among the remaining members. Warren Chase moved around the country and finally settled in California, where he held many public offices. [Source: Wisconsin Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Holmes, p. 94-104]

Here’s the Tuesday game in this week’s Sweet Sixteen series from Puzzability:

This Week’s Game — January 4-8
Sweet Sixteen
Happy 2016! For each day this week, we’ll give an eight-letter word or phrase and a trivia question. The 16-letter answer to that question (a title, name, or place) uses only the eight letters given.
Example:
HISTOGEN: What Rod Stewart song was his first U.S. #1 after “Maggie May,” five years later?
Answer:
“Tonight’s the Night”
What to Submit:
Submit the 16-letter title, name, or place (as “Tonight’s the Night” in the example) for your answer.
Tuesday, January 5
TAIL ENDS: What was the title of the 1960s-1980s American editions of the Agatha Christie book also known as And Then There Were None?

 

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

What’s a Greenhouse Gas?

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 54 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.

There are two points to this post about Whitewater’s waste-importation proposal. First, one can state a simple fact about methane; second, one can easily deduce what this says about the seriousness of the full-time city officials in Whitewater, Wisconsin who have advanced a supposedly clean and green process of turning others’ unwanted filth into methane.

First, the simple fact is that – far from being environmentally friendly – methane is an environmentally destructive greenhouse gas:

A greenhouse gas (sometimes abbreviated GHG) is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect.[1] The primary greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Without greenhouse gases, the average temperature of Earth’s surface would be about 15 °C (27 °F) colder than the present average of 14 °C (57 °F).[2][3][4] In the Solar System, the atmospheres of Venus, Mars andTitan also contain gases that cause a greenhouse effect.

Human activities since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (taken as the year 1750) have produced a 40% increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, from 280 ppm in 1750 to 400 ppm in 2015.[5][6] This increase has occurred despite the uptake of a large portion of the emissions by various natural “sinks” involved in the carbon cycle.[7][8]Anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (i.e. emissions produced by human activities) come fromcombustion of carbon-based fuels, principally coal, oil, and natural gas, along with deforestation.[9]

It has been estimated that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the present rate, Earth’s surface temperature could exceed historical values as early as 2047, with potentially harmful effects on ecosystems, biodiversity and the livelihoods of people worldwide.[10]

Second, although I’ll produce a far longer, peer-review-sourced assessment of methane’s dangers later in this series, even a cursory review of methane’s impact would have suggested to Whitewater’s City Manager Cameron Clapper and Wastewater Superintendent Tim Reel that methane production is destructive to the environment.

It’s hard to overstate how troubling this is, as a policy matter: either Messrs. Clapper and Reel are incapable of anything more than lightweight, erroneous, vendor-inspired work, or they could do better but feel that lightweight, erroneous, vendor-inspired work is all that Whitewater’s residents deserve.

Those who sat in rooms and listened to presentations from Clapper and Reel in which they touted methane as a good byproduct of waste importation heard junk science in the place of reasoning, a selling job over a sound job.

There’s much on which to focus, on the science side, later in this series.  I certainly don’t think a link to Wikipedia settles this matter – I think a link to Wikipedia shows that Clapper in particular hasn’t – after two years’ time – even begun to consider this matter properly.

Repeating vendors’ talking points, especially repeating the same discredited points over and over, is unworthy of a salary, particularly one derived from the taxes of so many struggling working people in a small rural town.

WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.