**Eagle was fine – she was massive, and used talon’s to ‘punch’ the drone out of the sky. Hung around overhead so I got a really good look. Eagle’s health was my main concern also**
This is the last thing a small bird sees when a Wedge-Tailed Eagle decides that you are dinner…
Do not fly drones near birds of prey, they clearly attack seeing you as a threat or the right sized dinner. This will cost you money and potentially harm to the bird. This one was fine.. the drone needed some attention before it could fly again.
If you see a bird of prey while flying. Land. I have added this to my operating procedure.
City, Culture, Liberty, Local Government, New Whitewater, Politics
The (Welcome) End of ‘Big’ in a Small Town
by JOHN ADAMS •
I don’t think much of the term ‘movers and shakers’ (that a nearby newspaper used to describe supposedly influential people) or ‘big’ people, etc. The terms almost always exaggerate actual influence.
I am sure, though, that a combination of diverse social media, the decline of print, the shifting demographics within Whitewater, and the next generation’s unwillingness to be obsequiously deferential dooms the accurate application terms like ‘movers and shakers’ or ‘big’ people.
This is all to the good: Whitewater’s future will be incomparably better when it’s no longer possible (or even believed to be possible) for a few to insist on reserved seats at the political table, at the expense of others.
The Puritan-like insistence on one city, one culture, one view depends on a willful ignorance of our actual condition: diverse groups, by age, vocation, ethnicity, and ideology.
The careful, narrow presentations of print publications, or the imitation of the same online, haven’t – for years now – adequately described this city. The expiration date on that way of thinking passed long ago.
This thinking lingers because those who push that view benefit from it, by insisting they have a pre-eminent place, and by advancing their work without even simple review.
Whitewater’s neither a principality nor a banana republic: she’s a small and beautiful city in a beautiful, continental republic.
The undeniable end of ‘big’ is approaching in Whitewater, and it’s a welcome, indeed a very welcome, prospect. There will be lots of scrapping along the way, but the outcome is assured.
In its place: thousands, different in many ways, but none higher or lower than any other.
WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN
“Estimates of Future Flows and Loadings”
by JOHN ADAMS •
Post 25 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 Donohue’s second of several technical memoranda, one sees the fundamental nature of a digester-energy project for a small town like Whitewater:
4.2 FUTURE FLOWS AND LOADINGS
A questionnaire was sent to approximately 12 industries in the City of Whitewater primarily to gauge their plans for future expansion. The questionnaire also requested information about use of phosphorus, chlorides, and other chemicals, and interest in sending high strength waste to the anaerobic digesters or accepting treated effluent for cooling or other purposes. Based on water use records and other information, only two Whitewater industries are significant in terms of flow and one of these responded to the survey. The survey responses indicate that no Whitewater industries are planning to expand or change in the foreseeable future. Most industries use commercial or residential water softeners with sodium chloride salt. None of the industries reported needing treatment or digestion of high strength wastes. One industry expressed some interest in treated WWTP effluent to replace approximately 3,200 gpd of makeup process water.
See, Donohue Technical Memo 2, Flows, Loadings, and Existing Conditions, http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/public_works/wastewater/Donohue_Technical_Memo_2_-_Flows_Loadings_and_Existing_Conditions.pdf.
Therein lies the nature of supposed energy production from this digester-energy project: rely on what’s available locally and the project will fail for lack of high-strength industrial waste; find high-strength industrial waste to fill the digester and Whitewater will become the destination for industrial wastes, trucked from faraway sources, that other cities do not want anywhere near their own communities.
Among what’s been published so far, there are memoranda and presentations (from both Donohue and city government) yet to discuss. Beyond that, of course, there are documents and answers to questions from the Question Bin one will have to seek.
The fundamentals, though, become clear the farther, and deeper, one looks.
WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.
Music
Monday Music: Howlin’ Wolf, Smokestack Lightning
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 8.10.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Monday brings scattered thunderstorms and a high of eighty to Whitewater. Sunrise is 5:56 and sunset 8:03, for 14h 07m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 16.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets tonight at 6:30 PM.
It’s the birthday of the Smithsonian Institution:
British scientist James Smithson (d. 1829) left most of his wealth to his nephew Henry James Hungerford; however, when Hungerford died childless in 1835,[5] the estate passed “to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge among men”, in accordance with Smithson’s will.[6] Congress officially accepted the legacy bequeathed to the nation, and pledged the faith of the United States to the charitable trust on July 1, 1836.[7] The American diplomat Richard Rush was dispatched to England by President Andrew Jackson to collect the bequest; Rush returned in August 1838 with 105 sacks containing 104,960 gold sovereigns (about $500,000 at the time, which is equivalent to $11,073,000 in 2015).[8][9]
Once the money was in hand, eight years of Congressional haggling ensued over how to interpret Smithson’s rather vague mandate “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”[7][9] Unfortunately the money was invested by the US Treasury in bonds issued by the state of Arkansas which soon defaulted. After heated debate, Massachusetts Representative (and ex-President) John Quincy Adams persuaded Congress to restore the lost funds with interest[10] and, despite designs on the money for other purposes, convinced his colleagues to preserve it for an institution of science and learning.[11] Finally, on August 10, 1846, President James K. Polk signed the legislation that established the Smithsonian Institution as a trust instrumentality of the United States, to be administered by a Board of Regents and a Secretary of the Smithsonian.[7]
Puzzability‘s series this week is called Logical Deductions. Here’s Monday’s game:
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This Week’s Game — August 10-14
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Logical Deductions
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This week, we’re bringing order and disorder at the same time. For each day, we started with a word or phrase, removed the seven letters in LOGICAL, and rearranged the remaining letters to get a new word or phrase. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the longer one first.
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Example:
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Greasy stuff used for massage; what masseurs do to the greasy stuff (or, make someone feel worse about something)
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Answer:
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Lubricating oil; rub it in
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What to Submit:
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Submit both pieces, with the longer one first (as “Lubricating oil; rub it in” in the example), for your answer.
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Monday, August 10
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Animation, Film
Sunday Animation: 5 mètres 80
by JOHN ADAMS •
5 mètres 80 from Nicolas Deveaux on Vimeo.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 8.9.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Sunday in town will bring a likelihood of afternoon thunderstorms and a high of seventy-three. Sunrise is 5:55 and sunset 8:05, for 14h 09m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 24.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Friday’s FW poll asked readers which candidate in the Fox GOP debate they thought performed the best. Respondents picked a top three of Marco Rubio (20.25%), Scott Walker 17.72%), and Rand Paul (15.19%).
Guam, Thursday, Aug. 9 — Gen. Carl A. Spaatz announced today that a second atomic bomb had been dropped, this time on the city of Nagasaki, and that crew members reported “good results.”
The second use of the new and terrifying secret weapon which wiped out more than 60 percent of the city of Hiroshima and, according to the Japanese radio, killed nearly every resident of that town, occurred at noon today, Japanese time. The target today was an important industrial and shipping area with a population of about 258,000.
The great bomb, which harnesses the power of the universe to destroy the enemy by concussion, blast and fire, was dropped on the second enemy city about seven hours after the Japanese had received a political “roundhouse punch” in the form of a declaration of war by the Soviet Union.
On this day in 1793, a pioneer is born:
1793 – Milwaukee Pioneer Solomon Juneau Born
On this date Laurent Salomon Juneau was born in Repentigny, Quebec, Canada. Known as the founder of Milwaukee, Juneau was a fur trader with John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company. He built the first log house in Milwaukee in 1822 and followed with the first frame house in 1824. In October 1833 he formed a partnership with Morgan L. Martin to develop a village on the east side of the Milwaukee River. Juneau was elected commissioner of roads and director of the poor in September 1835. He was also appointed postmaster, a position he held until 1843. In 1837 he began publishing the Milwaukee Sentinel. He was elected first mayor of Milwaukee in 1846. Juneau died on November 14, 1856. [Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, p.198]
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 8.8.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of seventy-eight. Sunrise is 5:54 and sunset 8:06, for 14h 12m 06s of daytime. Tee moon is a waning crescent with 34.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
On the evening of August 8, 1974, Richard Milhous Nixon sat at his desk in the Oval Office and announced that he was resigning the office of the president. The next day, he submitted his letter of resignation to Henry Kissinger and left for Yorba Linda, California.
In his immediate wake, Nixon left a shattered and confused nation, a host of spurned aides, and an accidental president. The fallout from Watergate stripped the nation of its political innocence, revolutionized executive power, and bequeathed a range of new reforms. It sent a huge new crop of politicians to Washington. It marked the American vocabulary, producing a range of new expressions and one durable naming scheme for scandals. We’re still grappling with the scandal today: In every debate about executive power or campaign-finance law or White House press management, Nixon looms in the background, glowering under his perpetually furrowed brow.
Tesla, the American maker of electric cars, has a charger that will find the port on one of its cars automatically. Clever:
Animals
Why Do There Seem to Be So Many Shark Attacks This Summer?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Cats
Friday Catblogging: “How Cats Took Over the Internet”
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s a new exhibition in New York that recognizes the influence that cats have had in cyberspace:
“For some reason, cats took off, and then it’s this avalanche that just sort of keeps piling up,” said Jason Eppink, the curator of “How Cats Took Over the Internet,” an exhibition that opens on Friday at the Museum of the Moving Image. “People on the web are more likely to post a cat than another animal, because it sort of perpetuates itself. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.”
The exhibition — which may well be the first mainstream museum installation entirely dedicated to cats online — is made up mostly of images, videos and GIFs of cats and is meant to be a cultural deconstruction of their enduring popularity. The show takes a high-minded look at anthropomorphism and what it calls the “aesthetics of cuteness” as well as a low-brow wallow through cheesy trends — like the LOLcats who demand cheezburger — and bad puns, like Caturday, a fad that had people posting cat pictures on Saturdays.
Via ‘How Cats Took Over the Internet’ at the Museum of the Moving Image @ New York Times.
Politics, Poll
Friday Poll: The Fox GOP Debate
by JOHN ADAMS •
In the Fox GOP Debate from last night, who looked best to you? Apart from your own views, but simply as a matter of comparing the candidates on stage, which one seemed the best (most capable, impressive, etc.) of the group?
See, from Fox News, clips from the 8.6.15 debate.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 8.7.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy, with an even chance of afternoon thundershowers, and a high of seventy-five. Sunrise is 5:53 and sunset 8:07, for 14h 14m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 45.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1947, an expedition in a wooden raft ends successfully:
On this day in 1947, Kon-Tiki, a balsa wood raft captained by Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl, completes a 4,300-mile, 101-day journey from Peru to Raroia in the Tuamotu Archipelago, near Tahiti.Heyerdahl wanted to prove his theory that prehistoric South Americans could have colonized the Polynesian islands by drifting on ocean currents.
Heyerdahl and his five-person crew set sail from Callao, Peru, on the 40-square-foot Kon-Tiki on April 28, 1947. The Kon-Tiki, named for a mythical white chieftain, was made of indigenous materials and designed to resemble rafts of early South American Indians. While crossing the Pacific, the sailors encountered storms, sharks and whales, before finally washing ashore at Raroia. Heyerdahl, born in Larvik, Norway, on October 6, 1914, believed that Polynesia’s earliest inhabitants had come from South America, a theory that conflicted with popular scholarly opinion that the original settlers arrived from Asia. Even after his successful voyage, anthropologists and historians continued to discredit Heyerdahl’s belief. However, his journey captivated the public and he wrote a book about the experience that became an international bestseller and was translated into 65 languages. Heyerdahl also produced a documentary about the trip that won an Academy Award in 1951.
A Google a Day asks a history question:
What was the charge of the 1807 indictment by the man who was chosen as Vice President on February 17, 1801, by the House of Representatives after thirty-six ballots?
Film, Lifestyle
Kite Flying Time, Collapsed
by JOHN ADAMS •
Twenty minutes into one minute —
City, School District, University, Waste Digesters, WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN
Policy Topics for the Fall
by JOHN ADAMS •
I last wrote in February about local policy topics that I thought were interesting. See, Policy Topics for the Spring and before that Four Public Topics for the Fall (2014).
In February, these were my selections: Whitewater School Budget Cuts, the Whitewater’s School Board Election, the UW-Whitewater’s Budget, UW-Whitewater’s Social Relations, and the City of Whitewater’s Waste Digester Proposal.
Looking out now, toward autumn, I’d keep most of these, adding one other. Here’s the latest list, in no particular order.
Whitewater School Budget Cuts, School Curriculum. I’m sure it’s a minority viewpoint, but I think the latest report to our school board on enrollment (from Sarah Kemp of the Applied Population Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison) offers a huge opportunity for the district.
I see that the district would prefer waxing enrollment, and that’s not what these data show. Still, a clear report like this sets aside a decade of wishful thinking, and in doing so allows this district to make a break with the past, and with junk public-relations schemes.
I’ll outline what can be done, usefully, in conditions like our district’s, if only this will prove to be a shrewd district administration.
UW-Whitewater’s Social Relations. The safety of students on campus, and in this city, will always be incomparably more important than administrators’ concerns about institutional and official reputations. The descent of selfish officials into ; act utilitarianism is risible, but it’s also far worse than that: individual are mistreated so that organizational misconduct may be concealed.
Sadly, this topic lingers: there’s likely more disturbing news yet ahead.
Economy, Population. I took merely a first stab during a recent When Green in Brown post at a few population issues, and later with a post on the town’s student and non-student populations. There’s far, far more to work out here (including, as one quickly sees, how some data are more robust than others, county-by-county.) This leaves comparisons, location by location, sometimes ill-fitting.
One would like – and should have – good and similar local information for each area county and community, but not every report has the same quality of information, leaving one to rely more on some measurements over others. Solid data would be useful for many topics. It’s worth spending the time to find good and similar estimates like that for all the area.
Along the way, it’s worth describing why some methods and measurements fall short, and how others can be improved.
Much to do here.
When Green Turns Brown. This is an ongoing series here at FREE WHITEWATER, and in time it will move to its own website, and will lead to a book and a video documentary about this digester-energy project. I’ve good help and guidance for the undertaking. (Even then, WGBT will continue to be featured at FREE WHITEWATER.)
I did not choose the project; I chose to write about what others have proposed and will build. A commenter wrote here that this is a topic of interest in many places – it most certainly is.
This topic didn’t begin in Whitewater, it’s not confined to Whitewater, and a discussion of it is part of a state and national discussion.
Whitewater is a small and beautiful town, but she’s not separate from our vast and beautiful continental republic. On the contrary, it’s American rights and American standards that uplift Whitewater.
But this is a long project, with two-dozen posts so far being mere notes along a journey.
These few, broad topics lie ahead, with other, unexpected topics possible, too.