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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.18.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday will bring scattered thunderstorms to Whitewater, with a high of eighty-one. Sunrise is 6:05 and sunset is 7:51, for 13h 46m 51s of daytime. The moon is waxing crescent with 12.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Market is open today from 3 to 7 PM at the Cravath lakefront. Readers can find information about the market, including scheduled vendors & activities, at the Whitewater City Market Facebook page.

Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

Crows having remarkable problem-solving skills, on display in the BBC program below —

On this day in 1795, Pres. Washington signs a treaty with Britain:

President George Washington signs the Jay (or “Jay’s”) Treaty with Great Britain.

This treaty, known officially as the “Treaty of Amity Commerce and Navigation, between His Britannic Majesty; and The United States of America” attempted to defuse the tensions between England and the United States that had risen to renewed heights since the end of the Revolutionary War. The U.S. government objected to English military posts along America’s northern and western borders and Britain’s violation of American neutrality in 1794 when the Royal Navy seized American ships in the West Indies during England’s war with France. The treaty, written and negotiated by Supreme Court Chief Justice (and Washington appointee) John Jay, was signed by Britain’s King George III on November 19, 1794 in London. However, after Jay returned home with news of the treaty’s signing, Washington, now in his second term, encountered fierce Congressional opposition to the treaty; by 1795, its ratification was uncertain….

Ultimately, the treaty was approved by Congress on August 14, 1795, with exactly the two-thirds majority it needed to pass; Washington signed the treaty four days later. Washington and Jay may have won the legislative battle and averted war temporarily, but the conflict at home highlighted a deepening division between those of different political ideologies in Washington, D.C. Jefferson and Madison mistrusted Washington’s attachment to maintaining friendly relations with England over revolutionary France, who would have welcomed the U.S. as a partner in an expanded war against England.

Here’s the Tuesday game from Puzzability:

This Week’s Game — August 17-21
Kings and Queens
We’re melding royal pairs this week. For each day, we started with the first name of a famous person whose last name is King, and also a word that can be followed by “queen” to get a familiar phrase or title. Each day’s clue shows the King name and the queen word melded together in a string of letters, with each in order but intermingled with the other.
Example:
VAILRAGNIN
Answer:
Alan/virgin
What to Submit:
Submit the King name and the queen word, in that order (as “Alan/virgin” in the example), for your answer.
Tuesday, August 18
DALNACRIRNGY

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

Surprisingly-Convenient, Highly-Speculative Food-Processing Sources

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 26 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.

At the end of May, Whitewater’s municipal government conducted a presentation on wastewater plant upgrades, including a plan for the importation of waste into the city.  Here’s part of what City Manager Clapper had to say about that importation:

“If we had a better system for receiving certain waste, for example, from food processing plants, which exist in this area — and it is reasonable to suppose that many of these facilities probably already have vehicles passing through Whitewater on a regular basis — these haulers can drop their waste off at our facility. If they did that, we would charge literally pennies per gallon, but it would add up,” Clapper said.

Whitewater treatment plant update outlined, Jefferson County Daily Union, 5.29.15, http://www.dailyunion.com/news/article_67911a44-0607-11e5-9868-43725b0e315c.html.

From the presentations and documents this series has covered –  only a small portion of all the material yet to be considered – Whitewater’s city manager, wastewater superintendent, and vendors promoting this project have referred to the need to import and deposit high-strength industrial waste into the digester.

See, along these lines, 12.3.13 Digester Presentation, and 1.21.14 First Vendor Presentation to Common Council.

(Every question in this series has a unique number, assigned chronologically based on when it was asked. All the questions from When Green Turns Brown can be found in the Question Bin. Today’s questions begin with No. 175.)

175. Despite a cost for importation improvements alone of over two-million, why is a description of the kinds of waste to be imported so speculative (“for example,” “it is reasonable to suppose”)?

176. Does anyone supporting this project truly believe that the importation described repeatedly as high-strength industrial waste would comprise only gently masticated food scraps from haulers who just happen to have trucks passing by Whitewater?

177. Hasn’t Whitewater heard this same vague claim before, when a sketch private contractor answered CDA member’s questions about whether the contractor would use food scraps from a local caterer? (That prior discussion had two revelations: that CDA members would hawk their own business interests to an outside business during a meeting, and that – most likely – one or more of those members thought anyone would be foolish enough to believe that a project like this ran on food scraps.)

By proponents’ own written assessments, profit is to be found in high-strength industrial wastes, but those assessments omit detailed consideration of what that sort of waste – trucked to Whitewater from faraway communities that will not take it – really includes.

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

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.17.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday will bring a probability of thunderstorms with a high of eighty-six to town.  Sunrise is 6:04 and sunset 7:53, for  13h 49m 28s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 7.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1978, adventurers successfully fly across the Atlantic by balloon:

The Double Eagle II completes the first transatlantic balloon flight when it lands in a barley field near Paris, 137 hours after lifting off from Preque Isle, Maine. The helium-filled balloon was piloted by Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman and flew 3,233 miles in the six-day odyssey….

The 11-story, helium-filled balloon made good progress during the first four days, and the three pilots survived on hot dogs and canned sardines. The only real trouble of the trip occurred on August 16, when atmospheric conditions forced the Double Eagle II to drop from 20,000 feet to a dangerous 4,000 feet. They jettisoned ballast material and soon rose to a safe height again. That night, they reached the coast of Ireland and on August 17 flew across England en route to their destination of Le Bourget field in Paris, site of Charles Lindbergh’s landing after flying solo in a plane across the Atlantic in 1927. Over southern England, their wives flew close enough to the balloon in a private plane to blow kisses at their husbands.

Blown slightly off course toward the end of the journey, they touched down just before dusk on August 17 near the hamlet of Miserey, about 50 miles west of Paris. Their 137-hour flight set new endurance and distance records. The Americans were greeted by family members and jubilant French spectators who followed their balloon by car. That night, Larry Newman, who at 31 was the youngest of the three pilots, was allowed to sleep with his wife in the same bed where Charles Lindbergh slept after his historic transatlantic flight five decades before.

Puzzability has a new series this week entitled, Kings and Queens. Here’s the August 17th game:

This Week’s Game — August 17-21
Kings and Queens
We’re melding royal pairs this week. For each day, we started with the first name of a famous person whose last name is King, and also a word that can be followed by “queen” to get a familiar phrase or title. Each day’s clue shows the King name and the queen word melded together in a string of letters, with each in order but intermingled with the other.
Example:
VAILRAGNIN
Answer:
Alan/virgin
What to Submit:
Submit the King name and the queen word, in that order (as “Alan/virgin” in the example), for your answer.
Monday, August 17
SDTAEPIHREYN

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.16.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ve another warm day ahead: Sunday will be sunny with a high of ninety-one. Sunrise is 6:02 and sunset is 7:55. The moon is a waxing crescent with 3.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

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The Friday FW poll asked readers about the possibile existence of a Mysterious Lizard Man of South Carolina. Most respondents (81.25%) doubted there was such a creature, but about one-in-five respondents thought that there probably was a giant reptile prowling the palmetto state.

On this day in 1896, someone gets to shout, as was said before about a Califonia find, that there’s gold in them thar hills —

While salmon fishing near the Klondike River in Canada’s Yukon Territory on this day in 1896, George Carmack reportedly spots nuggets of gold in a creek bed. His lucky discovery sparks the last great gold rush in the American West.

Hoping to cash in on reported gold strikes in Alaska, Carmack had traveled there from California in 1881. After running into a dead end, he headed north into the isolated Yukon Territory, just across the Canadian border. In 1896, another prospector, Robert Henderson, told Carmack of finding gold in a tributary of the Klondike River. Carmack headed to the region with two Native American companions, known as Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie. On August 16, while camping near Rabbit Creek, Carmack reportedly spotted a nugget of gold jutting out from the creek bank. His two companions later agreed that Skookum Jim–Carmack’s brother-in-law–actually made the discovery.

Regardless of who spotted the gold first, the three men soon found that the rock near the creek bed was thick with gold deposits. They staked their claim the following day. News of the gold strike spread fast across Canada and the United States, and over the next two years, as many as 50,000 would-be miners arrived in the region. Rabbit Creek was renamed Bonanza, and even more gold was discovered in another Klondike tributary, dubbed Eldorado.

“Klondike Fever” reached its height in the United States in mid-July 1897 when two steamships arrived from the Yukon in San Francisco and Seattle, bringing a total of more than two tons of gold. Thousands of eager young men bought elaborate “Yukon outfits” (kits assembled by clever marketers containing food, clothing, tools and other necessary equipment) and set out on their way north. Few of these would find what they were looking for, as most of the land in the region had already been claimed. One of the unsuccessful gold-seekers was 21-year-old Jack London, whose short stories based on his Klondike experience became his first book, The Son of the Wolf (1900).

For his part, Carmack became rich off his discovery, leaving the Yukon with $1 million worth of gold. Many individual gold miners in the Klondike eventually sold their stakes to mining companies, who had the resources and machinery to access more gold. Large-scale gold mining in the Yukon Territory didn’t end until 1966, and by that time the region had yielded some $250 million in gold. Today, some 200 small gold mines still operate in the region.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.15.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a warm Saturday, with a high of ninety. Sunrise is 6:01, and sunset 7:56, for 13h 54m 38s of daytime. We’ve still a new moon, with only .7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Earlier this week, NASA tested again a new rocket engine, designed to take humans farther in space than ever before:

 

NASA conducted a developmental test firing of the RS-25 rocket engine, on August 13 at the agency’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The 535 second test was the sixth in the current series of seven-tests of the former space shuttle main engine. Four RS-25 engines will power the core stage of the new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which will carry humans deeper into space than ever before, including to an asteroid and Mars.

One-hundred one years ago today, the Panama Canal opens for traffic:

In 1906, American engineers decided on the construction of a lock canal, and the next three years were spent developing construction facilities and eradicating tropical diseases in the area. In 1909, construction proper began. In one of the largest construction projects of all time, U.S. engineers moved nearly 240 million cubic yards of earth and spent close to $400 million in constructing the 40-mile-long canal (or 51 miles long, if the deepened seabed on both ends of the canal is taken into account). On August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal was opened to traffic.

On this date in 1862, Wisconsinites ready themselves in defense of the Union:

1862 – 24th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Mustered In
On this date in Milwaukee, the 24th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry was mustered in. The 24th was organized in late 1862 from the Milwaukee and the surrounding areas under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Herman L. Page. The regiment was encamped at Camp Sigel in Milwaukee. Page resigned one day after the muster in and Charles H. Larrabee was appointed Colonel. On September 5th, the regiment left Wisconsin for Kentucky. At Louisville they were assigned to the 37th Brigade, under Colonel Gruesel, of the 11th Division, under General Phillip Sheridan. The 24th was mustered out on June 10, 1865. [Source: 24th Wisconsin Infantry page]

City, Culture, Politics

On a Clear Day, One Can See Far Ahead (and Far Back)

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The longer I write, the more sensible it seems to me to take a longer view of life in town.

Comfort in a longer view doesn’t come from doubts about our future,  but from confidence in it, whatever work we yet have ahead. (We do have difficult choices ahead, in these next few years.)

Seeing this allows one to see farther ahead,  and farther back, and see in each direction more clearly.

What strikes me more each season is that tactical machinations of government, organizations, and companies in town often amount to less than the effort supplied. 

A few simple principles or goals,  not perfect but sincerely held, carry people and groups farther than political positioning and grand declarations. 

There are many steps toward a project, but if the goal should be good,  and the principles sound, one can go very far.

Good is neither perfect nor always right; there may be more than one good path,  and of those some may have a comparative advantage over others.

It strikes me how enervating and debilitating it must be to chase,  as quickly as possible, every rabbit that hops by.  There must be a lot of worry in that, a lot of stress, along the lines of ‘what have I missed today?’

Since last year,  I’ve outlined specific policy topics that seem of interest in the city for the immediate months ahead.   (See, most recently,  Policy Topics for the Fall.)

That’s not because there’s less about which to write,  but because there are issues about which to write in greater depth.

Other issues may intrude on one’s list, as life seldom follows a neat outline.  More significant still,  many of the most significant events in the city aren’t political or policy-oriented; so much that’s important sits outside politics and policy.

Of policy and commentary,  however,  there’s effectiveness to be found in the methodical,  broader view of events.   Confidence inclines toward a broader view,  and a broader view increases confidence.

Cats

Friday Catblogging: Monkey the Cat Works for His Supper

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Wild cats hunt for their food, and one cat owner decided to recreate, in a way, the hunting experience for his cat. In the video below, Monkey the Cat fetches balls located around an apartment, and takes them to an automatic feeder that dispenses cat food when he retrieves a ball.

Poll, Weird Tales

Friday Poll: The Mysterious Lizard Man of South Carolina

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One reads that in South Carolina, a resident insists that she spotted a lizard man – a large bipedal reptile – walking about:

BISHOPVILLE, S.C. (WCIV) — The fabled Bishopville swamp creature known as Lizard Man appears to have surfaced again Sunday afternoon.

Sarah, a Sumter woman who says she went to church with a friend Sunday morning, stepped out of the sanctuary to see the Lizard Man running along the tree line.

So she did what anyone else would do — took a picture with her phone.

“My hand to God, I am not making this up,” she wrote in an email to the ABC News 4 newsroom. “So excited!”

She says they were just a mile or so from Scape Ore Swamp, the site of a similar spotting of what may also be the Lizard Man in May.

See, Has Bishopville’s ‘lizard man’ returned? New video surfaces in case.

The video the story’s title mentions was recorded in May:

A man who asked not to be identified submitted a short video of what he thought was the Lizard Man Monday morning. He said he took the video in May while coon hunting but kept its existence quiet — until he saw the reports of Lizard Man outside a church.

“I saw your lizard man story and it’s given me the courage to send you a video I took in early May,” the man wrote. “Though my wife believes me that it’s real, she said she would be embarrassed that everyone would think I was a loon so I kept it a secret.”

WCIV-TV | ABC News 4 – Charleston News, Sports, Weather

It’s of course possible that both these people did see something, and that it was someone in a lizard-man suit. Alternatively, perhaps there are lizard people in South Carolina.

What do you think?

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.14.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Friday in town will be hot, with a high of ninety-two, and partly cloudy skies. Sunrise is 6:00 and sunset is 7:57, for 13h 57m 11s of daytime. We’ve a New Moon this evening.

On this day in 1945, after years of war across all the Pacific, the Japanese Empire admits defeat:

Washington, Aug. 14 — Japan today unconditionally surrendered the hemispheric empire taken by force and held almost intact for more than two years against the rising power of the United States and its Allies in the Pacific war.

The bloody dream of the Japanese military caste vanished in the text of a note to the Four Powers accepting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration of July 26, 1945, which amplified the Cairo Declaration of 1943.

Like the previous items in the surrender correspondence, today’s Japanese document was forwarded through the Swiss Foreign Office at Berne and the Swiss Legation in Washington. The note of total capitulation was delivered to the State Department by the Legation Charge d’Affaires at 6:10 P. M., after the third and most anxious day of waiting on Tokyo, the anxiety intensified by several premature or false reports of the finale of World War II.

Our good, present relationship with Japan did not come easily, to say the least, but that good relationship is so much to everyone’s advantage that we don’t even think of slipping back into conflict with her.

On this day in 1935, a Wisconsinite plays a key role in bringing Social Security into being:

1935 – Social Security Act Signed Into Law

On this date the Social Security Act was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt. The act, originally proposed to Congress under the name “Economic Security Bill” was drafted by the Committee on Economic Security, whose Executive Staff Director was Edwin E. Witte, economics professor at the University of Wisconsin and prominent social insurance expert. [Source: Social Security Online] User submitted entry!

Puzzability‘s series this week, Logical Deductions, concludes with Friday’s game:

This Week’s Game — August 10-14
Logical Deductions
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.
Example:
Greasy stuff used for massage; what masseurs do to the greasy stuff (or, make someone feel worse about something)
Answer:
Lubricating oil; rub it in
What to Submit:
Submit both pieces, with the longer one first (as “Lubricating oil; rub it in” in the example), for your answer.
Friday, August 14
Holder for your margarita as served at a bar; tall piles of drink holders or coasters at a bar