Sandy Seliga was vacationing from Toronto and had whale watching on her bucket list — we’d say she can safely check that item off after a sighting like this!!
Whales are a majestic part of the Bay of Fundy ecosystem. But these brilliant creatures are under stress from tanker traffic in the bay, which is poised to get a lot busier and riskier for whales with TransCanada’s proposed Energy East Pipeline.
Via Live 2 @ YouTube. more >>
Having presided over the national embarrassment that is the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, WEDC leader Reed Hall now heads for the exit:
The state’s top economic development agency, stung by a series of scathing audits, media reports about questionable loans and accusations of mismanagement, is once again seeking new leadership.
After three years steering Gov. Scott Walker’s flagship job-creation agency through troubled waters, Reed Hall announced Tuesday he is retiring as Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO on Sept. 25.
In a statement, Hall thanked Walker, the WEDC board, other cabinet secretaries and agency staff in saying “it is time for me to return to my previous retired status.”
Via WEDC CEO Reed Hall to leave troubled agency on Sept. 25 @ Wisconsin State Journal.
The best timing for Hall would have been to remain retired in the first place, but better late than never to depart.
The former Department of Commerce was a mess; the WEDC has been even worse.
Locally, there were a few development gurus in at the Community Development Authority who thought that WEDC support would prove both valuable and a public-relations boon to Whitewater.
Here we are, these years later, and all their proud claims are proved false: the WEDC has been – so very predictably – a state-funded failure.
When the WEDC, itself, will be shut down I cannot say, and in the meantime it’s sure to do more damage.
The local gentlemen who believed in it, against sound understanding, have espoused a sham economics.
Almost any sensible person, of Right or Left, would have crafted something better than this.
Someday, some of them will.
Previously: FW posts about WEDC negligence and waste.
Good morning, Whitewater.
Midweek in town will be mostly cloudy with a high of seventy-eight. Sunrise is 6:13 and sunset is 7:39, for 13h 25m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s University Tech Park Board meets at 8 AM this morning, and the Community Development Authority at 4:30 PM.
On this day in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution takes effect:
Washington, Aug. 26 — The half-century struggle for woman suffrage in the United States reached its climax at 8 o’clock this morning, when Bainbridge Colby, as Secretary of State, issued his proclamation announcing that the Nineteenth Amendment had become a part of the Constitution of the United States.
The signing of the proclamation took place at that hour at Secretary Colby’s residence, 1507 K Street Northwest, without ceremony of any kind, and the issuance of the proclamation was unaccompanied by the taking of movies or other pictures, despite the fact that the National Woman’s Party, or militant branch of the general suffrage movement, had been anxious to be represented by a delegation of women and to have the historic event filmed for public display and permanent record.
Secretary Colby did not act with undue haste in signing the proclamation, but only after he had given careful study to the packet which arrived by mail during the early morning hours containing the certificate of the Governor of Tennessee that that State’s Legislature had ratified the Congressional resolution submitting the amendment to the States for action.
On this day in 1863, Wisconsin soldiers see action on behalf of the Union:
1863 – (Civil War) Assault at Perryville, Oklahoma
The 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry was among the Union forces who assaulted Perryville, Oklahoma.
A Google a Day asks a pop culture question:
Who is the mother of the mother of the first grandchild of the “Demon of Screamin'”?
The City of Whitewater hopes to improve communications with Spanish-language residents. That goal is, of itself, a good one. It’s a practical, worthy ambition.
Language, however, is not the cause of local government’s self-acknowledged problem of attracting plentiful participation on public boards and committees. Greater facility with language, however admirable, is not the solution to government’s low participation rate.
The problem is a perimeter fence that’s too narrow, and a wider and more permeable perimeter fence requires far better outreach than facility with another language. See, The Perimeter Fence.
How can one be so sure that picking up a language alone (however good the idea) will not solve Whitewater’s perimeter fence problem?
One can be sure because even now, when the majority of the town consists of native English speakers, there’s a problem with participation from among that English-speaking majority.
Inclusion is more than translation: Whitewater will only increase participation meaningfully when she discards the narrow, relatively impermeable fence of politics and culture she has long maintained. See, The Solution to the ‘Same Ten People Problem’.
Measures short of that are half-measures, at best.
Hoping to maintain old ways in a new tongue is simply whistling past the graveyard.
Fundamental change in politics and culture will come to this city, and they will involve far more than a choice of language.
Good morning, Whitewater.
Our Tuesday will be cloudy with a high of seventy-three. Sunrise is 6:12 and sunset 7:40, for 13h 28m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 76.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets this afternoon at 4:30 PM.
On this day in 1944, fewer than three months after Allied landings at Normandy, Paris is liberated:
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS, Allied Expeditionary Force, Aug. 25 — The Paris radio announced late tonight that the French capital had been liberated and that the German commander had signed a document ordering his troops to cease fire immediately.
The announcement followed entry of American and French troops into the capital during the day. There was no immediate confirmation here.
The latest word at headquarters was that American and French troops had joined Fighting French patriots on the Ile de la Cite in the heart of the capital after bitter fighting with Germans and French collaborationist militiamen.
On this day in 1835, Michigan’s actions prove preludes to the formation of the Wisconsin Territory:
1835 – Incorporation of the Wisconsin Internal Improvement Company
On this date the Michigan legislature incorporated the Wisconsin Internal Improvement Company to open communication between Green Bay and the Mississippi by land or water. It was also on this day that the Governor of the Michigan territory (the Wisconsin territory was not yet created), Stevens T. Mason, officially called for the creation of a western legislative council. Both actions were critical to the creation of the Wisconsin Territory.[Source: Card File in WHS Library]
A Google a Day asks about a description from a film:
What kind of parent does a dad describe himself as in the 2012 Academy Award-nominated movie set in Hawaii?
Post 27 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.
One hears from local officials that spending over twenty-million on Whitewater’s wastewater treatment plant is a necessary upgrade. When considering the disposal of waste from the plant, however, there will be no upgrade whatever in the safety of what’s produced and spread nearby – there will simply be more of it, from received from faraway places.
That’s not my opinion – it’s the written assessment of the latest vendor behind this project, and the assessment that Whitewater’s municipal officials have, themselves, touted:
4.3.7 BIOSOLIDS REUSE
Biosolids disposal at the Whitewater WWTP follows the requirements of WAC Chapter NR 204, Domestic Sewage Sludge Management. The historical biosolids data show low metal content and therefore satisfy one of the requirements for “high quality” sludge. The Whitewater WWTP generates Class B biosolids based on the fecal coliform level in the solids being land spread.
Class B biosolids by definition have a higher level of pathogenic bacteria than Class A biosolids. Local farmers have accepted the Class B sludge for disposal on agricultural land. The majority of POTWs in Wisconsin produce Class B sludge.
Producing Class A sludge would provide the following advantages over Class B sludge:
1. The sludge would contain a lower level of pathogenic bacteria. Class A biosolids must have a fecal coliform concentration of less than 1,000 most probable number (MPN) per gram total solids.
2. Land application site evaluation reports would not be required and bulk sludge land application reports would not need to be filed with the WDNR.
3. Whitewater would not need to receive approval from the WDNR prior to applying sludge.
4. More sites would potentially be available to apply the sludge.
5. Since Class A biosolids have lower levels of pathogens, there is a lower threat to human health, and therefore, fewer measures are required to minimize human contact with the sludge.
To be considered “exceptional quality sludge” or Class A, the sludge must receive prescribed treatment to reduce pathogens and vector attraction. The prescribed treatment options available include lime stabilization, composting, heat drying, thermophilic aerobic digestion, temperature phased anaerobic digestion, heat treatment, pasteurization, or an equivalent process to further reduce pathogens. Based on the current acceptance of Class B biosolids for beneficial reuse and the increased costs necessary to comply with Class A biosolids regulations, it is assumed the Whitewater WWTP will continue to use the current methods of biosolids stabilization and disposal for the foreseeable future.
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.
Before: Pathogenic bacteria, a threat to human health, and needed measures required to minimize human contact with the sludge.
After: Pathogenic bacteria, a threat to human health, and needed measures required to minimize human contact with the sludge, in even greater quantities, trucked from faraway cities that don’t want it near their residents, to Whitewater.
For it all, this is what City Manager Clapper describes as “probably the greenest process we have in the city.”
WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.
Good morning, Whitewater.
Monday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of sixty-eight. Sunrise is 6:11 and sunset 7:42, for 13h 30m 51s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 67.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
Around this day in AD 79, Mount Vesuvius erupts, killing thousands:
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD was one of the most catastrophic and infamous volcanic eruptions in European history. Historians have learned about the eruption from the eyewitness account of Pliny the Younger, a Roman administrator and poet.[1]
Mount Vesuvius spewed a deadly cloud of volcanic gas, stones, and ash to a height of 33 kilometres (21 mi), ejecting molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing a hundred thousand times the thermal energy of the Hiroshima bombing.[2] Several Roman settlements were obliterated and buried underneath massive pyroclastic surges and ashfall deposits, the most well known being Pompeii and Herculaneum.[1][2]
The number of deaths is difficult to evaluate. The remains of about 1500 people have been found at Pompeii and Herculaneum, but it is not known whether they represent a small or a large part of the overall deaths….
The year of the eruption is pinned to AD 79 (that is, the corresponding year of the Roman ab urbe condita calendar era) by references in contemporary Roman writers, a number of them apart from Pliny the Younger, and has never been seriously questioned. It is determined by the well-known events of the reign of Titus. Vespasian died that year. When Titus visited Pompeii to give orders for the relief of the displaced population, he was the sole ruler. In the year after the eruption, AD 80, he faced another disaster, a great fire at Rome.
The time of year is stated once in one historical document, the first letter of Pliny the Younger to Tacitus,[25] as “nonum kal. Septembres”, which is not a regular syntactic unit and has no syntax (the grammarians say, indeclinable), but would seem to be an abbreviation of a standard date. By 79 the Julian Calendar was in use. The inscribing of dates was abbreviational and formulaic. Whether anyone knew exactly what the abbreviation stood for is questionable (compare English Mr. and Mrs.); certainly, literary representations such as Pliny’s left out or misinterpreted key elements that would be required for the understanding of a produced meaning. Pliny’s date (supposing that the date we now find in the text is the same one given by Pliny) would have been a.d. IX kal. sept., to be interpreted as “the ninth day before the Kalends of September”, which would have been eight days before September 1, or August 24 (the Romans counted September 1 as one of the nine)….
On this date in 1970, a bombing on the UW-Madison campus proves deadly:
1970 – Sterling Hall Bombing on UW-Madison Campus
On this date a car bomb exploded outside Sterling Hall, killing research scientist Richard Fassnacht. Sterling Hall was targeted for housing the Army Mathematics Research Center and was bombed in protest of the war in Vietnam. The homemade bomb (2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate soaked in aviation fuel) was detonated by the New Year’s Gang, aka Vanguard of the Revolution, who demanded that a Milwaukee Black Panther official be released from police custody, ROTC be expelled from the UW campus, and “women’s hours” be abolished on campus. The entire New Year’s Gang fled to Canada the evening of the explosion. Four men were charged with this crime: Karleton Armstrong, David Fine, Dwight Armstrong, and Leo Burt. All but Burt were captured and served time for their participation. Leo Burt remains at large.[Source: On Wisconsin Summer 2005]
A Google a Day asks a question about art:
Many of the cave paintings at Lascaux show the animals with heads in profile, but with horns facing forward. This is an example of what convention of representation?
I posted a haiku about a shark last week, and this animated film was the inspiration for that earlier post.
