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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.13.13

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Good morning.

It’s a mostly sunny Thursday with a high of seventy-four ahead for Whitewater. Sunrise was at 5:16 a.m., sunset will be at 8:35 a.m., and the Moon is a waxing crescent with 22% of its visible disk illuminated.

On 6.13.1966, the U.S. Supreme Court hands down the Miranda decision:

On this day in 1966, the Supreme Court hands down its decision in Miranda v. Arizona, establishing the principle that all criminal suspects must be advised of their rights before interrogation. Now considered standard police procedure, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you,” has been heard so many times in television and film dramas that it has become almost cliche.

On 6.13.1923,

1923 – Platteville beaten by Chicago Union Giants
On this date, Platteville’s baseball team was defeated by the Chicago Union Giants, a member of the Negro League. The team, known at this time as the Gilkerson Union Giants, toured Wisconsin and the upper midwest each summer, playing local teams from small towns. The team was so good “that beating them made the season for local teams.” [Sources: Wisconsin Stories and Negro League Baseball Players Association]

Puzzablity has a new weekly theme for June 10-14: “Paternity Test
There’s a bit of a generation gap this Father’s Day week. Each day’s clue is a series of words, each with one letter replaced by a dash. Fill in the missing letters one way to get the first (or only) name of a famous father, real or fictional, then fill them in another way to get the name of a child of his.”

Example:
ADO-E / HO-SEFLY / PA-PER / CHE-K / CHE-RY
Answer:
ADOBE HORSEFLY PAUPER CHECK CHEERY
ADORE HOUSEFLY PAMPER CHEEK CHERRY
Bruce & Rumer (Willis)

Here’s June 13th’s puzzle:

-INX / OVERT-RE / CA-TOR / CONV-CTION / UP-IGHT / -ERILY / W-ISTBAND

Business, Law, Local Government, Official Misconduct, Open Government

How Local Government Has It Easier Than Yelp

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Yelp may be a popular website for positing restaurant (and other) reviews, but it has a controversy on its hands. Some businesses are complaining about Yelp’s practice of hiding some reviews behind a link (that is, where one has to click the link to see all posted reviews). Some restaurateurs contend that Yelp hides favorable reviews to punish establishments that won’t advertise on Yelp.

(Yelp denies this, and an academic review of Yelp’s practices suggests that at least there’s no readily-apparent bias in how Yelp displays reviews.)

Yelp has a problem because its formula for displaying reviews is a company secret that breeds suspicion that it’s a rigged formula. (Ironically, Yelp contends that it hides the method by which it assesses reviews to keep businesses from gaming the website’s process).

Local government has it easier, at least in Wisconsin: follow publsihed rules for Open Meetings (Wis. Stats. §§ 19.81-19.98) and Public Records (Wis. Stat. §§ 19.31 – 19.39) and the resulting transparency will reduce suspicion and rumor.

There’s no need to craft a particular strategy to deal with public concerns – the law lays out – and requires – a particular path.

Why, then, if local governments have a mandatory legal framework that should make official conduct more open and reputable, do so many officials tend toward the secretive and hidden?

They do this should they place their own private needs and interests – including a should limitless need for grand tales of their own supposed triumphs – ahead of clear law and good policy. They discard the ready-made framework of the law, and fall into a situation not much different from Yelp.

Officials’ abandonment of good law for selfish private action is both wrong specifically and impractical generally. Just as no official is above the law, so no community deserves conditions beneath the law. That lower condition is one of errors of planning and allocation, and a condition that could have been avoid with the transparency that the law requires.

More about the Yelp reviews controversy:

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.12.13

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Good morning.

Wednesday will be a day of showers and thunderstorms in the Whippet City, with a high of seventy-nine. New rainfall will amount to between three-quarters and one inch.

On this day in 1987, Pres. Reagan challenges Soviet ruler Gorbachev:

…in one of his most famous Cold War speeches, President Ronald Reagan challenges Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall, a symbol of the repressive Communist era in a divided Germany….

With the wall as a backdrop, President Reagan declared to a West Berlin crowd in 1987, “There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.” He then called upon his Soviet counterpart: “Secretary General Gorbachev, if you seek peace–if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe–if you seek liberalization: come here, to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Reagan then went on to ask Gorbachev to undertake serious arms reduction talks with the United States.

Most listeners at the time viewed Reagan’s speech as a dramatic appeal to Gorbachev to renew negotiations on nuclear arms reductions. It was also a reminder that despite the Soviet leader’s public statements about a new relationship with the West, the U.S. wanted to see action taken to lessen Cold War tensions. Happily for Berliners, though, the speech also foreshadowed events to come: Two years later, on November 9, 1989, joyful East and West Germans did break down the infamous barrier between East and West Berlin. Germany was officially reunited on October 3, 1990.

On June 12th 1899, a devastating tornado in Wisconsin:

On this date the worst tornado disaster in Wisconsin history occured. The storm virtually leveled New Richmond on the day the Gollmar Brothers Circus came to town. At the time, New Richmond was a prosperous town of 2500 people and one of the most scenic places in Wisconsin. On the day of the storm, the streets were filled with residents and tourists waiting for the afternoon circus parade. Shortly after the circus ended, the tornado passed through the very center of town, completely leveling buildings. Over 300 buildings were damaged or destroyed. Massive amounts of flying debris resulted in multiple deaths in at least 26 different families. In all, the storm claimed 117 lives and caused 150 injuries. [Source: National Weather Service]

Puzzablity has a new weekly theme for June 10-14: “Paternity Test
There’s a bit of a generation gap this Father’s Day week. Each day’s clue is a series of words, each with one letter replaced by a dash. Fill in the missing letters one way to get the first (or only) name of a famous father, real or fictional, then fill them in another way to get the name of a child of his.”

Example:
ADO-E / HO-SEFLY / PA-PER / CHE-K / CHE-RY
Answer:
ADOBE HORSEFLY PAUPER CHECK CHEERY
ADORE HOUSEFLY PAMPER CHEEK CHERRY
Bruce & Rumer (Willis)

Here’s June 12th’s puzzle:

YO-EL / CONF-RM / SHRI-K / CLE-TS / SPI-L / ENCO-E

Government Spending, Walworth County

Hey, Walworth County, How About Buying Over-Priced, Half-Unsuitable Parkland with Taxpayer Money!

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Most people would say that among the important uses for public money are public safety (and the administration of justice) & emergency services for the truly needy. One might think of it this way: safety, justice, and poverty assistance.

There are few people who would ask a small rural county – with a large state forest system in its midst — to spend almost two million dollars for over-priced, supposed parkland, half of which is, itself, unsuitable as parkland, anyway.

Few people, yet at least two (one of whom, Clark, is the seller):

LYONS — Duane Clark and Kevin Brunner stood on a grassy bank of the White River on a recent spring afternoon with birds chirping in the woods around them and water gurgling over rocks a few feet away.

They were showing a Gazette reporter and photographer around Clark’s property off Sheridan Springs Road in the town of Lyons. The land is less than five miles northeast of Lake Geneva, but Brunner said it feels like someplace else.

“Do you think you’re in northern Wisconsin here?” he asked.

Oh, brother.

1. It would be a $1.9 million-dollar purchase with public money.

2. There’s reasonable suspicion it’s over-priced.

3. Walworth County Central Services Director Brunner wants this land for recreation (‘kayak, picnic,’ etc.).

4. There’s an existing 22,000-acre state forest in Walworth County, and adjacent counties. It offers fine opportunities for hiking, riding, skiing, and nature study.

Behold, THE KETTLE MORAINE STATE FOREST, SOUTHERN UNIT:

20130611-113348.jpg

5. Not only would Walworth County deplete what it has in its park fund for this one purchase, it would have to grab almost a million dollars from the state, and borrow almost — wait for it — $600,000 more. Taxpayers in Walworth County will be hit with tax money spent and debt incurred, and taxpayers across the whole state will be asked to subsidize this scheme.

6. Simply because there’s money in a park fund does not justify wasting it. Someone should properly reallocate the money to greater needs, or at the least not add more unsuited land to public property.

When government spends money budgeted for minor wants instead of allocating it to dire needs, needy people experience continuing deprivation and comfortable people only engorge themselves (from others’ earnings).

Allocations of that kind are misallocations.

Others’ earnings, taken or to be taken as taxes, shouldn’t simply be used because they’re burning a hole in a bureaucrat’s pocket, and not for the first time.

7. One reads that Walworth County’s Central Services Director assures that purchasing the land with taxpayer money and public debt will have “zero tax impact.” That’s impossible, of course, and as state taxpayer dollars, local taxpayer dollars, and public debt all have a tax impact.

Here one finds an example of the late economist Henry Hazlitt‘s contention that

….there is a second main factor that spawns new economic fallacies every day. This is the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of a policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.

(Emphasis added.)

A simple truth, from a simple and plain book, yet a lesson still ignored.

8. One learns of this proposal from an informative and well-written news story, by the way.

9. Thanks much to the sharp reader who told me of this story — I’m appreciative, as always.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.11.13

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Good morning.

We’ll have a warm and mostly sunny Tuesday, with a high of eighty-four.

Whitewater’s Parks & Rec Board meets today at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress appoints a committee:

…Congress selects Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut and Robert R. Livingston of New York to draft a declaration of independence.

Knowing Jefferson’s prowess with a pen, Adams urged him to author the first draft of the document, which was then carefully revised by Adams and Franklin before being given to Congress for review on June 28.

The revolutionary treatise began with reverberating prose:

When, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Congress would not tolerate the Committee of Five’s original language condemning Britain for introducing the slave trade to its American colonies as a cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty. Those distant people who never offended would have to wait another century and for another war before their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would begin to be recognized.

It’s Gene Wilder’s birthday:

1935 – Gene Wilder Born
On this date Gene Wilder (aka Jerome Silberman) was born in Milwaukee. Wilder graduated from Washington High School in Milwaukee in 1951. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Iowa in 1955. and studied judo, fencing, gymnastics and voice at the Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, England. Wilder won the Clarence Derwent award for the Broadway play “The Complaisant Lover” in 1962. He continued to perform on Broadway in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1963), Dynamite Tonight (1964), and The White House (1964).

Wilder made his film debut in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), then earned an Oscar nomination the following year as the accountant Leo Bloom in The Producers, the first of three films he made for writer-director Mel Brooks. Wilder is known for his work in such films as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972), Blazing Saddles (1973), and Young Frankenstein (1974). After his second wife Gilda Radner died of ovarian cancer, Wilder co-founded Gilda’s Club, a support group to raise awareness of the disease. [Source: Internet Movie Database]

Puzzablity has a new weekly theme for June 10-14: “Paternity Test
There’s a bit of a generation gap this Father’s Day week. Each day’s clue is a series of words, each with one letter replaced by a dash. Fill in the missing letters one way to get the first (or only) name of a famous father, real or fictional, then fill them in another way to get the name of a child of his.”

Example:
ADO-E / HO-SEFLY / PA-PER / CHE-K / CHE-RY
Answer:
ADOBE HORSEFLY PAUPER CHECK CHEERY
ADORE HOUSEFLY PAMPER CHEEK CHERRY
Bruce & Rumer (Willis)

Here’s June 11th’s puzzle:

BL-CKHEAD / ACCE-T / STUD-ED / CR-PT

Business, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, State Government, Taxes/Taxation

Corporate Welfare in America’s Dairyland (Yet Again)

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The practice of thriving, multi-million-dollar companies taking ordinary taxpayers’ money to subsidize their private ventures has two aspects: (1) it’s wrong, as it takes from those with little and gives to those with much and (2) it’s sadly commonplace.

Consider the case of Husco International, a private company in Wisconsin with an expectation of “more than $360 million in global revenue in 2013, a 300-percent increase over 2009 and 20 percent higher than 2012.” By Husco’s own account, it’s committing tens of millions to a capital expansion that will produce one-hundred fifty jobs.

And yet, and yet, despite extraordinary growth and private profit, Husco will still take $800,000 in public money (as tax credits) from the Walker Administration.

Taxpayers’ Tab. At up to $800,000 for 150 jobs, Husco International could reap $5,333 per job from taxpayers over a three-year period. An ordinary person’s earnings – undoubtedly far more meager than the company’s $360 million in global revenue — will subsidize this company.

Having much, Husco will take from those who have far less.

Politics. For Governor Walker (or in their respective days, Govs. Doyle, McCallum, or Thompson), the attraction is clear: use hundreds of thousands in taxpayers’ earnings to associate oneself with another’s success, as though all these reported gains in jobs were somehow impossible without a state subsidy.

That’s a taxpayer-funded, $800,000 campaign commercial.

If Husco can commit $45,000,000 privately (assuming it’s all private), then they can commit 1.7% more for a truly free-market venture. If they can’t, then they’ve a problem of planning that makes them even less suitable for public funds. (This assumes a company with $360 million in expected revenue could be any less suitable for public money).

Many Past Jobs Have Been Abroad. Husco promises these jobs, should they all develop, will be in Wisconsin. [Local Note: They don’t say how many for which towns, in Waukesha or Whitewater. It’s a convenient way to keep both cities’ hopes up.]

Businesses should be able to locate where they wish, but it’s fair to ask a business that now wants tax credits: What about the location of past job growth?

Reportedly, Husco spent large sums previously, but for “new jobs globally, approximately half of which” were in Wisconsin.

Approximately half.

I’ll assume that whatever jobs they do create now will be in Wisconsin; past job-creation has included places elsewhere.

Wisconsin tax credits for Husco presently will bolster a company that previously hired abroad — at a geater number (approx. 250) — than they promise to hire now (150) in Wisconsin. This public money for Husco needlessly bolsters a company that hasn’t always been so Wisconsin-centric.

(Even considering past, published local hiring, almost 40% of these two waves will have been for foreign jobs.)

Multi-million-dollar companies should not receive, as they do not deserve, corporate welfare.

That’s true everywhere, including America’s Dairyland.

Published also @ Daily Adams.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.10.13

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Good morning.

The week begins with a twenty percent chance of showers this morning, fading into an increasingly sunny day. We’ll have a high of seventy-six.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets tonight at 6 PM.

People play golf one way, and foxes another:

Today is the anniversary of a legendary experiment:

On this day in 1752, Benjamin Franklin flies a kite during a thunderstorm and collects a charge in a Leyden jar when the kite is struck by lightning, enabling him to demonstrate the electrical nature of lightning. Franklin became interested in electricity in the mid-1740s, a time when much was still unknown on the topic, and spent almost a decade conducting electrical experiments. He coined a number of terms used today, including battery, conductor and electrician. He also invented the lightning rod, used to protect buildings and ships.

On this day in 1837, Wisconsin prepares for her first Capitol building:

1837 – State Capitol Workers Arrive in Madison
On this date workmen arrived in Madison to begin construction of the first state capitol building. A ceremony to lay the building’s cornerstone was to be held three weeks later, on July 4, 1837. [Source: Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles]

Puzzablity has a new weekly theme for June 10-14: “Paternity Test
There’s a bit of a generation gap this Father’s Day week. Each day’s clue is a series of words, each with one letter replaced by a dash. Fill in the missing letters one way to get the first (or only) name of a famous father, real or fictional, then fill them in another way to get the name of a child of his.”

Example:
ADO-E / HO-SEFLY / PA-PER / CHE-K / CHE-RY
Answer:
ADOBE HORSEFLY PAUPER CHECK CHEERY
ADORE HOUSEFLY PAMPER CHEEK CHERRY
Bruce & Rumer (Willis)

Here’s June 10th’s puzzle:

DEFE-T / TO-DIES / F-CTION / S-UGGLE

Libertarians, Liberty

Now More Than Ever

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LIBERTY. It’s a simple idea, but it’s also the linchpin of a complex system of values and practices: justice, prosperity, responsibility, toleration, cooperation, and peace. Many people believe that liberty is the core political value of modern civilization itself, the one that gives substance and form to all the other values of social life.

THEY’RE CALLED LIBERTARIANS.

Twitter

Recent Tweets, 6.2 to 6.8

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