Good morning, Whitewater.
Our Thursday will be sunny with a high of fifty-nine. Sunrise is 7:01 AM and sunset 6:22 PM. The moon’s a waning gibbous with ninety-eight percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Paper airplanes will never go out of style, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t benefit from upgrades:
Google-a-Day poses a question about architecture:
What is the most famous design in Rome by the architect credited with introducing High Renaissance style to the city?
In the video below, a four-day old hedgehog has a snack.
The recording is from a British organization, Wildlife Aid:
We are the Wildlife Aid Foundation and have been saving wildlife in the UK for over 30 years and been the heart of the television series “Wildlife SOS” for over 15 years on Animal Planet.
We will be adding new videos here every week to show you the intimate goings on as they happen here at Wildlife Aid, it’s our way of digitally opening our doors to you so you can see where your donated money goes and the amazing animals whose lives you enhance every day with your generosity.
Subscribe now to our channel to keep up to date with all the foxes, badgers, squirrels, birds etc as well as the exciting and dramatic rescues our founder Simon Cowell embarks on almost every day.
You can also keep updated via
Our website: http://www.wildlifeaid.org.uk
Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/WildlifeAid
Follow us on twitter: https://twitter.com/wildlifeaid
What happens when a political party slips into a permanent minority within a community? For Rock County, it means that the party – no matter how strong statewide – runs bottom-tier candidates. The WISGOP dominates state government, but in nearby Rock County, a blue-tinted electorate means they’re stuck with few candidates who can win.
Only this September, the nineteen-year-old Republican candidate for 44th Assembly district had to withdraw from the race after ordinary residents (but not the county party, apparently) discovered that he had a stream of racist and otherwise bigoted posts on social media. See, On Vetting Candidates: Be Sure to Check “Social Media.” You Know, on the Inter-Webs.
Now comes Brian Fitzgerald, a middle-aged Republican candidate for the 15th Senate District, with two of the ripest political ads Wisconsin has seen in a while. It’s understandable that Fitzgerald needs to do something to get attention in a district that’s mostly blue (Democrat Tim Cullen, now retiring, holds the seat).
What’s truly nutty is that, somehow, Fitzgerald thinks that a campaign commercial in which he warns a fellow tavern patron to stay out of the bathroom so as to avoid the malodorous emissions Fitzgerald has produced upon relieving himself would be a good commercial for his campaign.
It’s that bad:
As it turns out, Fitzgerald says this is his favorite of the commercials he’s preparing. See, subscription req’d, Senate candidate’s ads feature bathroom, bar, swearing.
There’s a difference between edgy and vulgar.
Honest to goodness, can the Rock County GOP not find better candidates? I’m a libertarian, and not a Republican, but the simplest thing one could say about the Rock County GOP is that each and every one of its party leaders needs to (1) quit, (2) soak his or her head, and (3) promise never to return to party leadership again.
By the way, for the campaign supporters who have a big, red sign for Fitzgerald along Main Street in Whitewater — you’re now out of step with your candidate.
Let me suggest something more suitable to your candidate’s own tastes:
Good morning, Whitewater.
Wednesday morning brought a lunar eclipse to North America. Wisconsin’s in North America, Whitewater’s in Wisconsin, so we got to see it, too. If you didn’t have a chance to view it early this morning, here’s a video recording of the eclipse from NASA (video updated as timelapse, 8:15 PM):
Our weather today brings sunny skies and a high of sixty-two.
The Community Development Authority meets today at 5 PM.
On this day in 1871, Wisconsinites in Peshtigo suffer the worst fire in American history:
The Peshtigo Fire was a forest fire that took place on October 8, 1871 in and around Peshtigo, Wisconsin. It was a firestorm that caused the most deaths by fire in United States history, with estimated deaths of around 1,500 people,[1] possibly as many as 2,500.[2] Occurring on the same day as the more famous Great Chicago Fire, the Peshtigo Fire has been largely forgotten.[3][4] On the same day as the Peshtigo and Chicago fires, the cities of Holland and Manistee, Michigan, across Lake Michigan, also burned and the same fate befell Port Huron at the southern end of Lake Huron as well….
The setting of small fires was a common way to clear forest land for farming and railroad construction. On the day of the Peshtigo Fire, a cold front moved in from the west, bringing strong winds that fanned the fires out of control and escalated them to massive proportions.[5] A firestorm ensued. In the words of Gess and Lutz, “A firestorm is called nature’s nuclear explosion. Here’s a wall of flame, a mile high, five miles (8 km) wide, traveling 90 to 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), hotter than a crematorium, turning sand into glass.” [6] By the time it was over, 1,875 square miles (4,860 km² or 1.2 million acres) of forest had been consumed, an area approximately twice the size of Rhode Island. Some sources list 1.5 million acres (6,100 km²) burned.[citation needed] Twelve communities were destroyed. An accurate death toll has never been determined because local records were destroyed in the fire. Between 1,200 and 2,500 people are thought to have lost their lives. The 1873 Report to the Wisconsin Legislature listed 1,182 names of deceased or missing residents.[7] In 1870, the Town of Peshtigo had 1,749 residents.[8][9] More than 350 bodies were buried in a mass grave,[10] primarily because so many had died that no one remained alive who could identify many of them.
The fire jumped across the Peshtigo River and burned on both sides of the inlet town.[11] Survivors reported that the firestorm generated a fire whirl (described as a tornado) that threw rail cars and houses into the air. Many escaped the flames by immersing themselves in the Peshtigo River, wells, or other nearby bodies of water. Some drowned while others succumbed to hypothermia in the frigid river. The Green Island Light was kept lit during the day because of the obscuring smoke, but the three-masted schooner George L. Newman was wrecked offshore; the crew was rescued without loss.[12]
The fire was so intense it jumped several miles over the waters of Green Bay and burned parts of the Door Peninsula. In Robinsonville (now Champion) on the Door Peninsula, Sister Adele Brise and other nuns, farmers, and families fled to a local chapel for protection. There they participated in prayers and devotions to the Virgin Mary. Although the chapel was surrounded by flames, it survived.[13][14][15] Those gathered at the chapel considered their survival a miracle.[16]
Google-a-Day asks a question of pop culture & television:
In the show’s last season, who played the part of the homeless person who came to live with siblings Mike, Carol, Ben and Chrissy and their stay-at-home psychiatrist dad?
David Fincher – And the Other Way is Wrong from Tony Zhou on Vimeo.
Tony Zhou appraises director David Fincher: “For sheer directorial craft, there are few people working today who can match David Fincher. And yet he describes his own process as “not what I do, but what I don’t do.” Join me today in answering the question: What does David Fincher not do?”
For a list if Fincher’s films, see IMDb. For more of Tony’s Zhou’s film criticism, see Zhou’s Vimeo Channel.
Good morning, Whitewater.
Tuesday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of sixty-four.
At 8 AM this morning, there is a scheduled meeting of Downtown Whitewater’s board of directors. This evening, at 6:30 PM, Common Council will meet.
Does your workplace have an office dog, a canine who lives with you and your co-workers during the day? If so, you’re fortunate – an office or shop dog can improve the work atmosphere (and is an expression of a good atmosphere to begin with).
Over at Fast Company, they’ve a contest into which you can enter your company’s office dog:
[W]e present the America’s Top Office Dog Competition–or #topdog, for short. We know that dogs can be great for office morale and productivity, but what specific dog is the best office dog? (And is it even a dog? Could the best office dog be a bookstore cat? Just something to consider.)And is it your office dog?
To have a chance at being America’s Top Office Dog, please email topdog @ fastcompany.com (or tweet with #topdog to) us:
*A photo of your office dog.
*The name of the dog.
*Company name.
*Rationale for winning. This could be a productivity tip, the time your dog helped win over a client, really any story that demonstrates top dog-ness. Please keep these statements to 100 words or less.Bracket voting will begin on Monday, 10/20 so we’ll need entrants by Wednesday, 10/15. The Top Dog will be chosen by Fast Company staff and a guest judge–Twitter’s own animal expert, @darth. Please spread the word! America’s Top Office Dog is out there. Prize TBA.
On this day in 2001, America (and Britain) begin a war against Taliban-ruled (and Al Qaeda-hosting) Afghanistan:
On Sunday 7 October 2001, American and British forces began an aerial bombing campaign targeting Taliban forces and al-Qaeda.
The Northern Alliance, aided by Joint Special Operations teams consisting of Green Berets from the 5th Special Forces Group, aircrew members from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), and Air Force Combat Controllers, fought against the Taliban. Aided by U.S. bombing and massive defections, they captured Mazari Sharif on 9 November. They then rapidly gained control of most of northern Afghanistan, and took control of Kabul on 13 November after the Taliban unexpectedly fled the city. The Taliban were restricted to a smaller and smaller region, with Kunduz, the last Taliban-held city in the north, captured on 26 November. Most of the Taliban fled to Pakistan.
The war continued in the south of the country, where the Taliban retreated to Kandahar. After Kandahar fell in December, remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda continued to mount resistance. Meanwhile, in November 2001 the U.S. military and its allied forces established their first ground base in Afghanistan to the south west of Kandahar, known as FOB Rhino.
The Battle of Tora Bora, involving U.S., British and Northern Alliance forces took place in December 2001 to further destroy the Taliban and suspected al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. In early March 2002 the United States military, along with allied Afghan military forces, conducted a large operation to destroy al-Qaeda in an operation code-named Operation Anaconda.
Google-a-Day asks a question about a destination:
more >>When the president of Haiti fled the country following a 1991 coup, in what country did he first find asylum?
Something suspenseful for Halloween month:
All these years, so much talk about closer ties, and there’s still a chasm between city and university.
So much so, that for many residents in the city to learn about university-related crime, they’d have to look for an out-of-city station or publication.
See, from Saturday @ 2:58 PM, Student reportedly called name, kicked, punched: UW-Whitewater says attackers used sexually derogatory term before attack.
My point isn’t that UW-Whitewater did not alert its students about the now-reported incident – they have a campus-notification system.
My point is that hyper-local news sources are few, and no less ideological (often selectively so) than are self-acknowledged commentators.
I’d guess it’s made worse by a university leadership that so evidently yearns for Old Whitewater’s acceptance.
It’s only when the city and university – both – have a culture that encourages more than striving to be one of a few hundred in middling magpies that there will be improvement in city-university conditions.
That’s at least one, and perhaps two, chancellors from now.
Mostly ska, with hints of jazz:
Good morning, Whitewater.
The beginning of our week will be mostly sunny with a high of fifty-eight. Sunrise today is 6:58 AM and sunset 6:28 PM. The moon is in a waxing gibbous phase with ninety-six percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Friday’s FW poll asked respondents whether they thought a dog (Sammy, a boxer) should be allowed on the sofa. Almost seventy-four percent of respondents said yes, she should; around twenty-six percent of respondents said she shouldn’t.
Every day, countless people use computers to draw, and many of those drawings use curved shapes. How do computers really make those curves? Peter Nowell explains how:
Cubic Bezier Curves – Under the Hood from Peter Nowell on Vimeo.
On this day in 1866, America experiences her first train robbery:
Famous train robbers include Bill Miner, Jesse James, and Butch Cassidy. Jesse James is mistakenly thought to have completed the first successful train robbery in the American West when on July 21, 1873 the James-Younger Gang took US $3,000 from a Rock Island Railroad train after derailing it southwest of the town of Adair, Iowa.[1] However, the first peacetime train robbery in the United States actually occurred on October 6, 1866, when robbers boarded the Ohio & Mississippi train shortly after it left Seymour, Indiana. They broke into one safe and tipped the other off the train before jumping off. The Pinkerton National Detective Agency later traced the crime to the Reno Gang. There was one earlier train robbery in May 1865, but because it was committed by armed guerrillas and occurred shortly after the end of the Civil War, it is not considered to be the first peacetime train robbery in the United States. Some sources say that the May 1865 robbery took place at a water siding while the train was stopped taking on water.
On this day in 1917, Wisconsin’s Fighting Bob speaks up for free speech:
1917 – Robert La Follette Supports Free Speech in Wartime
On this date Senator Robert La Follette gave what may have been the most famous speech of his Senate career when he responded to charges of treason with a three hour defense of free speech in wartime. La Follette had voted against a declaration of war as well as several initiatives seen as essential to the war effort by those that supported U.S. involvement in the first World War. His resistance was met with a petition to the Committee on Privileges and Elections that called for La Follette’s expulsion from the Senate. The charges were investigated, but La Follette was cleared of any wrong doing by the committee on January 16, 1919. [Source: United States Senate]
Google-a-Day asks a question about pop culture:
The 2011 Emmy Award winner for “Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series,” starred opposite “The Big Easy” actress in the 2011 revival of what Broadway play?
You really never know when this might come in handy.
Good morning, Whitewater.
Sunday in town will be fair with a high of fifty-six. Sunrise today is 6:57 AM and sunset is 6:29 PM. The moon is in a waxing gibbous phase with eighty-nine percent of its visible disk illuminated.
A camera crew in Iceland recorded the volcanic eruption of the Bardabunga Volcano using a small Phantom 2 quadcopter. The first video below shows their work, and the second video explains how much effort it took to get close to the volcano and make a recording:
On this day in 1813, future president William Henry Harrison defeats a combined British and Indian force at the Battle of the Thames:
Shortly after daybreak on October 5, after ordering his troops to abandon their half-cooked breakfast and retreat a further two miles, Procter formed the British regulars in line of battle with a single 6-pounder cannon. He planned to trap Harrison on the banks of the Thames, driving the Americans off the road with cannon fire. However, he had taken no steps towards fortifying the position (e.g. by creating abatis or throwing up earthworks), so the ground presented no obstacle to the American mounted troops, while scattered trees masked the British fire. Tecumseh’s warriors took up positions in a black ash swamp on the British right to flank the Americans. Tecumseh rode along the British line, shaking hands with each officer, before joining his warriors.[12]
General Harrison surveyed the battlefield and ordered James Johnson (brother of Richard Mentor Johnson) to make a frontal attack against the British regulars with his mounted Kentucky riflemen. Despite the Indians’ flanking fire, Johnson broke through, the British cannon having failed to fire. The exhausted, dispirited and half-starved British troops fired one ragged fusillade before giving way. Immediately Procter and about 250 of his men fled from the field. The rest surrendered.
Tecumseh and his followers remained and carried on fighting. Richard Johnson charged into the Indian position at the head of about 20 horsemen to draw attention away from the main American force, but Tecumseh and his warriors answered with a volley of musket fire that stopped the cavalry charge. Fifteen of Johnson’s men were killed or wounded, and Johnson himself was hit five times. Johnson’s main force became bogged down in the swamp mud. Tecumseh is believed to have been killed during this fighting. The main force finally made its way through the swamp, and James Johnson’s troops were freed from their attack on the British. With the American reinforcements converging and news of Tecumseh’s death spreading quickly, Indian resistance soon dissolved.
Colonel Johnson may have been the one who shot Tecumseh, though the evidence is unclear. William Whitley, a Revolutionary War veteran, is also credited with killing Tecumseh. Whitley, of Crab Orchard, Kentucky, volunteered for the raid on Tecumseh’s camp, and was killed during the attack. Before the attack, he had requested that General Harrison have his scalp removed if he died and send it to his wife.
After the battle, American mounted troops moved on and burned Moraviantown (marked today by the Fairfield Museum on Longwoods Road), a settlement of pacifist Christian Munsee of the Moravian Church, who had not participated in the fighting. Because the enlistments of the militia component of Harrison’s army were about to expire, the Americans retired to Detroit.
Good morning, Whitewater.
We’ll have about a one-third chance of showers, on a Saturday with a high of forty-six.
Saturday Night Live has a suggestion for the NFL on player introductions. One can think of it as a version of truth-in-advertising:
On this day in 1957, the Soviets launch Sputnik 1 into orbit:
The Sputnik rocket was launched on 4 October 1957 at 19:28:34 UTC (5 October at the launch site[1]) from Site No.1 at NIIP-5.[53] Telemetry indicated the side boosters separated 116 seconds into the flight and the core-stage engine shut down 295.4 seconds into the flight.[51] At shut down, the 7.5 tonne core stage with PS-1 attached had attained an altitude of 223 km (139 mi) above sea level, a velocity of 7,780 m/s (25,500 ft/s) and velocity vector inclination to the local horizon of 0 degrees 24 minutes. This resulted in an initial orbit of 223 kilometres (139 mi) by 950 kilometres (590 mi), with an apogee approximately 500 kilometres (310 mi) lower than intended, and an inclination of 65.1 degrees and a period of 96.2 minutes.[51]
19.9 seconds after after engine cut-off, PS-1 separated from the second stage[1] and the satellite’s transmitter was activated. These signals were detected at the IP-1 station by Junior Engineer-Lieutenant V.G. Borisov, where reception of Sputnik’s “beep-beep-beep” tones confirmed the satellite’s successful deployment. Reception lasted for two minutes, until PS-1 fell below the horizon.[28][54] The Tral telemetry system on the R-7 core stage continued to transmit and was detected on its second orbit.[1]
The designers, engineers and technicians who developed the rocket and satellite watched the launch from the range.[55] After the launch they drove to the mobile radio station to listen for signals from the satellite.[55] They waited about 90 minutes to ensure that the satellite had made one orbit and was transmitting, before Korolyov called Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.[56] On the first orbit the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) transmitted: “As result of great, intense work of scientific institutes and design bureaus the first artificial Earth satellite has been built”.[57] The R-7 core stage, with a mass of 7.5 tonnes and a length of 26 meters, also reached Earth orbit and was visible from the ground at night as a first magnitude object following the satellite. Deployable reflective panels were placed on the booster in order to increase its visibility for tracking.[56] The satellite itself, a small, highly polished sphere, was barely visible at sixth magnitude, and thus more difficult to follow optically. A third object, the payload fairing, also achieved orbit.
The core stage of the R-7 remained in orbit for two months until 2 December 1957, while Sputnik 1 orbited until 4 January 1958, having completed 1,440 orbits of the Earth.[1]
