FREE WHITEWATER

Attrition, Authoritarianism, Big Lie, Daily Bread, Elections, Federal Government, Insurrection, Law, Never Trump, Trump, Trumpism

Daily Bread for 7.22.22: Trump’s Maneuvering is Futile Against Cheney’s Attrition

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 88. Sunrise is 5:37 AM and sunset 8:25 PM for 14h 48m 15s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 30.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1990, Greg LeMond, an American road racing cyclist, wins his third Tour de France after leading the majority of the race. It was LeMond’s second consecutive Tour de France victory.

Jennifer Rubin’s fifth and final takeaway from last night’s January 6th Committee hearings is the most significant: 

[Committee Chairman Bennie] Thompson said at the beginning of the hearing that “the dam has begun to break.” More witnesses are emerging and new evidence is pouring in, he said, adding that the committee will reassemble in September for more hearings.

Among the issues left to examine is the full-blown scandal concerning the Secret Service’s deletion of texts from Jan. 5 and 6. (To no one’s surprise, the Secret Service agents that promised to refute testimony from [Cassidy] Hutchinson have not shown up. They have retained their own lawyers.)

In any case, the series of Trump advisers and allies expressing disgust at his actions should convince all but the most delusional cultists that Trump should never be trusted with power again. As [Former Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew] Pottinger said, Trump gave America’s enemies ammunition to claim our nation was in “decline” and that democracy doesn’t work.

In an eloquent summation, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) reminded the country that “we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.” Her message was clear: Trump’s return to power would be unimaginable.

Republican Liz Cheney isn’t a model of libertarianism, but she does have a powerful grasp of the dispositive power of attrition. Trump is all about maneuver, moving this way or that on any given day, shifting and lying as he believes the moment requires. He thinks in immediate and personal ways: what to say today, whom to praise or disparage today. Trump looks no farther than the next florid press release, the next rally, etc.

Cheney, by contrast, so clearly sees the power of attrition to erode an adversary so that he becomes impotent and ineffectual of future action. In a case like this, attrition takes a few weapons (claims about Trump’s autocratic ambitions and selfish actions) and uses them to hit, chip, crack, and then shatter an adversary. What’s shattered is thereafter ruined: that dust and that rubble will not reassemble itself. 

Trump likely thinks that it matters whether Republicans re-nominate Cheney in Wyoming. Cheney rightly sees that what matters is advancing a confident, consistent, incremental erosion of Trump for all time. Slow, steady, relentless. 

Trump maneuvers, but Cheney attrits. Hers is — by far — the more powerful approach. Successful attrition of an adversary will leave nothing of him, save a stack of yellowing press releases and tarnished trinkets. 

 London to New York in just over 3 hours? That’s the aim of this new net zero supersonic airliner: 

 

It hasn’t taken to the skies yet, but the Overture aircraft is designed to trim hours off long-haul flights and avoid harming the environment by using 100 per cent sustainable aviation fuel.

Cats, Technology

Friday Catblogging: An Open-Source Robotic Cat

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Sarang Sheth writes about a robot cat called Nybble:

Designed to be a robot that you can build, play, and explore with, Nybble comes with a laser-cut plywood body that you must put together first. The entire process takes about 4 hours including the assembly, software and calibration configuration time, and once you’re done, Nybble is ready to play with! Nybble’s architecture makes it a rather nimble, flexible little cat, as it borrows bionic concepts from a cat’s skeleton. The robot cat comes outfitted with two ultrasonic sensors on its front that act as the robot’s “eyes”.

It sports a USB input that lets you connect it to a device to tinker around with its open-source code and teach it new tricks (in Python, C++ or a graphical user interface via the Petoi desktop app), and even comes with Bluetooth and WiFi dongles as well as an infrared remote controller.

Other parts include a holder for two 14500 Li-ion rechargeable 3.7V batteries that give Nybble up to 45 minutes of play-time, and even silicone covers for the cat’s feet, to give it friction as well as prevent it from accidentally scratching your furniture!

Big Lie, Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Law, Trump, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 7.21.22: Trump as Wisconsin’s Obsessive Stalker

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 89. Sunrise is 5:36 AM and sunset 8:26 PM for 14h 50m 06s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 41.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater, Wisconsin will see a meeting at 3 PM of the Joint Review Board to present on Tax Incremental Finance Districts 4, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Years of tax incremental financing through local government planning and reams of press releases about government-directed development programs, yet for it all Whitewater is still a low-income community. What’s changed in the last twenty years is the size of the group that still believes local government is a meaningful engine of residents’ economic well-being. That tiny remnant of diehards could fit on a park bench next to the bum talking about the time machine he invented. 

On this day in 1949, the United States Senate ratifies the North Atlantic Treaty, the treaty that establishes the legal basis for NATO.

A national story in the Washington Post assesses Trump’s focus on Wisconsin. Philip Bump writes Trump’s deluded effort to flip the 2020 results in Wisconsin, explained: 

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) neatly, if unintentionally, summarized nearly every aspect of Donald Trump’s post-2020 election effort to somehow return to power.

“He would like us to do something different in Wisconsin,” Vos said of Trump, explaining a phone call the former president made to him last week. “I explained that it’s not allowed under the Constitution. He has a different opinion and he put the tweet out.” (It was actually a post on Truth Social, but we’ll get to that.)

Vos’s summary makes clear that he has now joined former vice president Mike Pence and a battery of other officials across the country: Trump wanted them to do something they had no power to do — and so Trump disparaged them publicly.

The situation in Wisconsin, however, is a bit more complicated than Trump’s other ongoing efforts to somehow reverse the results of an election that’s seen President Biden serve as president for 18 months. It derives from a recent decision from the state’s elected Supreme Court that Trump allies are now presenting as having invalidated the presidential election results in that state.

It does not and it could not, and, as Vos notes, this should be obvious to even the most Trump-sympathetic observers.

….

It’s worth considering the logic here. If the Supreme Court were tomorrow to declare that voting in polling places was for some reason unconstitutional, would Trump (or anyone!) argue that votes cast by that method in 2020 should not count? Would the natural response be to recalculate election results to exclude those votes? Or would there be a recognition that most or all of those voters would simply have cast ballots some other way? That’s setting aside the assertion that it’s odd to decry illegal behavior when illegality was asserted only after the fact. If buying alcohol was made illegal tomorrow, the 21st Amendment repealed, would that mean that everyone who’s had a drink since 1933 engaged in criminal activity?

Trump has become Forward’s obsessive stalker, returning to her again and again with unwanted advances. 

 Ius and Tithonium Chasmata seen in “true colour” (4K UHD): 

 

Observations made by ESA’s Mars Express with the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) were combined into a “true colour” image, reflecting what would be seen by the human eye if looking at Ius and Tithonium Chasmata (trenches), part of Mars’ Valles Marineris canyon structure.

Bad Ideas, Business, Corporate Welfare, Daily Bread, Foxconn, Government Spending, Kleefisch, Michels, No Honor Among Thieves, Politics, Scott Walker, Trump

Daily Bread for 7.20.22: Michels Keeps His Money, Discards His Views

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 86. Sunrise is 5:35 AM and sunset 8:27 PM for 14h 51m 54s of daytime.  The moon is in its third quarter with 50.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1969, Apollo 11‘s crew successfully makes the first manned landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to walk on the Moon six and a half hours later.

Here at FREE WHITEWATER there is a category dedicated to the failure that was and remains the Foxconn project. Foxconn was and remains a national embarrassment. Trump and Walker pushed this sham, and Walker’s dutiful lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, supported it with the bubbly enthusiasm one would expect of her.

Now in a battle with Kleefisch for WISGOP gubernatorial nomination, Trump-endorsed candidate Tim Michels has decided to criticize Kleefisch for supporting Foxconn. Well, fine: Foxconn was a mistake. 

And yet, and yet — before Michels turned on Foxconn, and before he won the endorsement of the Foxconn-enticing Trump, Michels himself was making big money from the Foxconn project. Corrine Hess reports Governor candidate Tim Michels criticizes Foxconn deal after making millions on the project:

MOUNT PLEASANT – Republican candidate for governor Tim Michels says the deal Scott Walker struck to bring Foxconn to Wisconsin was a problem and is also criticizing the Evers administration’s renegotiation of the Foxconn contract.

Michels’ own company was named a subcontractor for the project in 2018 and it made millions of dollars building roads for the Foxconn project.

The wealthy business executive has also gotten the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, who proclaimed Foxconn’s Mount Pleasant complex would be the “eighth wonder of the world.”

“We had a problem with the initial Foxconn negotiation and then Tony Evers said he was going to renegotiate Foxconn made a big complete mess of it,” Michels said in an interview after a campaign rally Monday. 

….

When asked how much money the company was paid on the Foxconn contract, Michels said, “I don’t know the exact number. It’s certainly several hundred million dollars worth of work. I’d probably guess closer to a half of a billion dollars worth of work.” 

Oh, brother.

Michels needn’t talk about this — two simple photos would suffice:

(L-R: Michels corporate profit, Taxpayer outcome.) 

Tim and Rebecca deserve each other in the way that George and Martha of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe deserve each other.

 Apollo 11 Moonwalk Montage:

 

CDA, City, Daily Bread, Development, Economics, Economy, Government Spending, School District

Daily Bread for 7.19.22: Individual and Household Well-Being

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 89. Sunrise is 5:34 AM and sunset 8:28 PM for 14h 53m 39s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 61.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM. 

On this day in 1903, Maurice Garin wins the first Tour de France.

In small towns across the Midwest (and places far beyond), discussions about development and economic improvement almost always focus on particular projects, and as frequently those are government-subsidized projects. There’s an emphasis on capital projects: what can we build today? The theory: if we build it, they will come. (In W.P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe, on which Field of Dreams was based, building is meant to entice a single person: “if you build it, he will come.” No matter, as capital projects to attract others sometimes fail to attract even a single person.) 

Peter Coy’s recent column in the New York Times, on measuring economic inequality, makes plain the emptiness of considerations of mere capital spending. However one thinks about inequality, from left, center, or right, all serious considerations emphasize individual economic well-being: 

Differences in wealth and differences in income are the wrong ways to measure economic inequality, and going by either of them “dramatically overstates” the degree of inequality in the United States, a working paper argues.

The right measure of economic inequality is differences in spending power, says the paper, “U.S. Inequality and Fiscal Progressivity: An Intragenerational Accounting,” which is by the economist Alan Auerbach of the University of California, Berkeley, the economist Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University and the software developer Darryl Koehler of Economic Security Planning.

Spending power — the amount of goods and services that a person can buy — is what really matters to people because it captures the ability to satisfy their wants and needs, Auerbach, an expert on the economics of public finance, told me. He asked me to imagine bars of gold encased in a radioactive block. If wealth can’t be used, it’s of no value. The same goes for income, he said.

Study after study has shown rising inequality of income and wealth in the United States. An article by the economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman published in 2017 found that the average real income of the top 0.1 percent of the population grew by 298 percent between 1984 and 2014, while the average real income of the bottom half of the population grew just 21 percent.

But spending power gives a different picture. Still bad, but not as bad. The richest 1 percent of 40- to 49-year-olds in the United States own 29.1 percent of their age cohort’s net wealth, but account for only 11.8 percent of their group’s remaining lifetime spending power, the new paper says. The poorest fifth of the 40-somethings own just 0.4 percent of the group’s net wealth but have 6.6 percent of the remaining lifetime spending power, the paper says.

(Emphasis added.) 

These analyses — from whatever part of the economic spectrum — focus on what individuals and families possess, what they have at their disposal, not whether some development man thought that he could play builder with public money.

(Now and forever: venture capital is privately funded; development men, local landlords, and their ilk who want to play at venture capital should use their own money, not public funds. There was never a more dishonest program in Whitewater than the CDA’s capital catalyst program.) 

When a school district — like Whitewater’s — insists that $1.6 million for athletic fields will produce an economic uplift, they cannot offer a single bit of evidence on how this will measurably affect overall individual and household incomes within the district.

That’s what matters. The rest is misdirected discussion in Whitewater, in Wisconsin, in the Midwest, or anywhere else.  

 Birmingham [England] golf course catches fire after extreme temperatures amid heatwave: 

 

America, City, Daily Bread, Local Government, Politics, School District, University

Daily Bread for 7.18.22: Sure Enough, It’s National Issues that Grip Wisconsinites

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 88. Sunrise is 5:33 AM and sunset 8:28 PM for 14h 55m 21s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 71.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM. 

On this day in 1968, Intel is founded in Mountain View, California.

The claim that national political controversies are merely an expression of resentment is false. It was false after 2016, it was false in 2020, and it’s false in 2022.

Our national political controversies are over competing ideas and philosophies. Reducing national conflict to feelings of insult is simple-minded. (For criticism of claims that national debates are stem from resentment, see Resentment’s a Nebulous National Explanation and Considering The Politics of Resentment, Concluding Thoughts. )

Sure enough, a recent survey of Wisconsinites’ political concerns shows that they are most concentrated with national politics and that those national concerns are about policies and programs, not hurt feelings. It’s policy not politesse that underlies national conflicts. 

Sophia Voight reports Wisconsinites are carrying the weight of the nation’s problems on their shoulders heading into the midterm election, survey finds: 

Wisconsinites have the weight of the nation’s problems on their minds heading into the 2022 midterm elections, a nod to a state whose voters might be pivotal to the balance of power in the U.S. Senate this fall.

That was a key finding of the La Follette Policy Poll, a written survey sent to 5,000 state residents last fall, which asked about the issues that matter to them most and the problems they most want solved. Nearly 1,600 responded.

“The main goal was taking a pulse on what are the policy topics Wisconsinites care about most with the hopes of steering our elected officials and candidates toward those topics,” said Susan Webb Yackee, a professor of public affairs and director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.

The poll asked how concerned people were with the economy, government regulation, infrastructure, income distribution, taxes, the federal budget deficit, climate change, race relations, education and health care in the country and in Wisconsin.

Results showed that people across all groups found these issues to be a greater problem on the national level than in the state. 

These are competing ideas about the “economy, government regulation, infrastructure, income distribution, taxes, the federal budget deficit, climate change, race relations, education and health care.” 

Concern over these national issues is justified: each one of these topics holds significance for Americans. 

While some local issues may be about resentment, that’s not a cause of America’s present divisions. People are disagreeing over ideologies not insults. 

(The intensity of national debate means that there is little or no margin when local government causes turmoil by failing to communicate, failing to justify thoroughly its decisions, or blaming residents for communication failures and division. Government is responsible for governmental actions, not residents, parents, families, students, or household pets.) 

Our continent-wide conflicts are over clashes of ideology. The La Follette survey reminds us that we should see the divisions for what they truly are, while recognizing that local government mistakes could not come at a worse time. 

 The Rio Tinto offers a “visit to Mars” to space and nature enthusiasts: 

 

Culture, Daily Bread, Language

Daily Bread for 7.17.22: On Latinx

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater be partly sunny, with scattered afternoon thunderstorms, and a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:32 AM and sunset 8:29 PM for 14h 58m 38s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 80.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1955, Disneyland is dedicated and opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.

  There’s much controversy of what to call a person or group: by the nouns or pronouns members of the group would prefer, or by terms apart from individual or group preference? The term Latinx is an example this question. Frank Newport of Gallup addressed the topic earlier this year in Controversy Over the Term ‘Latinx’: Public Opinion Context:

One of the central threads in critiques of the use of “Latinx” is evidence measuring the opinions of rank-and-file Hispanic Americans themselves. These data show that relatively few Hispanic adults have even heard of the term, and very few indicate an interest in using it to describe their ethnicity.

My colleagues Justin McCarthy and Whitney Dupree reviewed Gallup’s research this past summer. Only 4% of Hispanic Americans surveyed by Gallup preferred “Latinx” as the label of choice to describe their ethnic group. The majority (57%) said that a choice among the labels “Hispanic,” “Latino,” “Latinx” or another term didn’t matter to them, while another 23% preferred “Hispanic” and 15% preferred “Latino.” These results were very similar to those from a Gallup survey conducted in 2013.

A follow-up question asked the 57% of Hispanic Americans who initially said it didn’t matter to them which term was used if they leaned toward the use of any of the labels. Only 5% of this residual group (equivalent to 3% of all Hispanics) leaned toward the label “Latinx”; most tilted toward the use of “Hispanic” or “Latino.” Overall, then, Gallup data show that at most 7% of Hispanic adults have an interest in the use of the term “Latinx.”

These results have been replicated in other surveys. Pew Research in 2020 reported that 76% of Hispanic Americans had not heard of the term “Latinx,” while only 3% reported they actually used it and 4% said they prefer it be used to describe the Hispanic or Latino population.

What is a libertarian to make of this?

First, in a private context, between individuals or groups, people should be able to describe themselves as they’d prefer.  Others, outside those groups, should be free to meet those preferences (the culturally considerate position) or reject those preferences (less considerate but still lawful).

Second, in cases where one doesn’t know how a given member of a group wishes to describe himself or herself, it’s sound to rely on what one knows about most members through polling and surveys. (This isn’t a libertarian position as much as a practical one: a first approximation, so to speak, relies on likelihoods derived from sound surveys.)

Third, government should accept and accommodate strongly-held preferences of designations among adults’ preferences where possible. People are possessed of individual rights, and individual rights, when harmless to others, are to be respected. (If this were not so, there would be no legitimate dissent in speech or religion. Contra Trump, the liberal in liberal democracy doesn’t mean left-of-center, it means respect for individual rights within a majority-voting polity.)

(The hardest questions about terminology don’t involve adult speakers, but government’s response to children speaking away from their parents in terms those parents do not accept. That’s not my topic here, but it states the obvious to sat that that question is an order of magnitude more intense than debates among adults about terminology. A topic for another time…) 

As for speaking about the Hispanic community, this non-Hispanic libertarian will begin by describing that community as a surveyed majority of its own members prefer. I’ll adjust in reference to individual members as they’d prefer, and if a majority of the Hispanic community one day adopts a new designation, then I will adopt that term. 

Their preferences should supersede an imposed term. 

Why Real Dijon Mustard Is So Expensive:

City, Documentary, Film, History

Film: Wednesday, July 20th, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Return to Auschwitz: The Survival of Vladimir Munk

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Wednesday, July 20th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Return to Auschwitz: The Survival of Vladimir Munk @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Documentary

One hour 

75 years ago, he lost his home and his family. Now he is going back. 95 year old Vladimir Munk, a Holocaust survivor, who eventually became a university professor, returns in 2020 to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp, where his parents and over 30 relatives were murdered during World War II. A telling, moving story…

One can find more information about Return to Auschwitz: The Survival of Vladimir Munk at the Internet Movie Database.

America, Daily Bread, Economy, Employment, Productivity

Daily Bread for 7.16.22: Free Markets in Labor

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater be partly sunny, with scattered afternoon thunderstorms, and a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:31 AM and sunset 8:30 PM for 14h 58m 38s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 88.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1945, the Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

  An economy facing labor shortages could alleviate those problems with greater worker productivity, automation (itself a spur to worker productivity), or more workers. America is a productive economy, but gains in worker productivity are nowhere so great that they compensate fully for labor shortages. American businesses do use robots, but there are still many industries where robots cannot compensate fully for labor shortages.

And so, and so… America could use more workers.

Dany Bahar and Pedro Casas-Alatriste ask Who are the 1 million missing workers that could solve America’s labor shortages?:

According to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were over 11.2 million job openings (May 2022). In the construction industry, there were an estimated 434,000 job openings (May 2022), yet there were just 389,000 unemployed in that same industry (June 2022). In other words, there is a shortage of almost 50,000 workers. In retail trade, the gap is even wider. With 1.14 million job openings and 720,000 unemployed, there is a labor supply deficit of 420,000 people. If that’s still not surprising enough: The number of unemployed people in the accommodation and food services industry is 565,000, while the number of job openings totaled 1.4 million. Even if every worker in that industry were employed, there would still be 835,000 job openings.

From a broader perspective, in just 12 years, adults 65 and older will outnumber children under 18 for the first time in the history of the United States. And shortly after, by 2040, projections suggest the country will have 2.1 workers per Social Security beneficiary. According to these calculations, the system needs at least 2.8 workers per Social Security beneficiary to maintain its economic feasibility.

….

Let’s now add into the equation some stylized facts about the 1 million workers that the U.S. has deported back to Central America since 2009. The data comes from representative surveys carried out by Colegio de la Frontera, a Mexican research institution that surveys deportees from the U.S. in Mexico’s south border on their way back to their home countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.  

The vast majority of these deportees are men and have a high school diploma or less, according to the most recent data from 2019. They are also overwhelmingly young—with nearly 90 percent of them between the ages 15 to 39 and 65 percent being between the ages 15 to 29. Compare this to all other migrants in the U.S. who have a median age of 46 years.  

Among the deportees that gathered some work experience in the U.S. during their stay (the ones who stayed for longer, naturally), they worked in a very diverse set of occupations that, ironically, have remarkable overlap with the occupations in high demand right now in the U.S. For instance, about 60 percent were in the construction industry, about 20 percent worked in services (such as the food industry), nearly 10 percent worked in industry, and 8 percent were technicians and administrative staff.

(Emphasis added.)  

Free markets in capital, goods, and labor are to America’s economic advantage. 

Music-Loving Elk Disrupts Concert in Colorado: 

City, Daily Bread, Local Government

Daily Bread for 7.15.22: A Necessary, Practical Foundation for a City Manager Search

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see thunderstorms with a high of 79. Sunrise is 5:30 AM and sunset 8:31 PM for 15h 00m 12s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 95.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1815, Napoleon surrenders aboard HMS Bellerophon.

  Whitewater, Wisconsin (population 14,889) is looking for a new city manager. The municipal government has a seven-person common council and an appointed city manager.

In Whitewater, unlike nearby towns, the city manager is expected to take a front-and-center role. In other communities, an appointed city manager plays a less public role. By contrast, in Whitewater, the city manager plays a prominent public role, as though an unelected mayor. (Every so often, Whitewater considers the idea of an elected mayor, but proposals of that sort have never succeeded.) 

On 7.12.22, the six members participating in a special common council session voted unanimously to select GovHR, a consulting firm, to conduct a search for Whitewater’s next city manager. It was the right decision. Although GovHR submitted a higher-cost bid, they offered more services within that bid, and the expectation of prominence that Whitewater has for her city manager justifies a diligent, skilled search firm. (See, above, video of the full council special session.) 

While a search is no guarantee of an outcome, laying a sound foundation for a city manager search is sensible.  (When the search firm presents its candidates, the Whitewater Common Council will then have an obligation to choose wisely among the prospects offered or demand new candidates.)

The goal of the search should be to find someone who will assure the daily, practical management of a limited and responsible city government. 

 Video shows pilot landing stricken small plane on highway: 

Cats

Friday Catblogging: Domestic Shorthair v. Logan International Airport

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The Associated Press reports Rowdy the runaway cat is caught after weeks on the lam at Boston’s airport:

BOSTON — A family’s beloved pet cat that’s been dodging airport personnel, airline employees, and animal experts since escaping from a pet carrier at Boston’s Logan International Airport about three weeks ago was finally caught Wednesday.

“Whether out of fatigue or hunger we’ll never know, but this morning she finally let herself be caught,” an airport spokesperson said of the cat named Rowdy in a statement.

Rowdy was given a health check and will be returned to her family.

“She looks great, is happy to be with people and I am sure will be happy to be reunited with us,” her owner Patty Nolet Sahli posted on Facebook.

Rowdy’s time on the lam began June 24, as the family returned to the U.S. from an Army deployment to Germany, Sahli previously posted. When their Lufthansa flight landed. the 4-year-old black cat with green eyes escaped her cage, in pursuit of some birds.

Soon Rowdy herself was on the receiving end of a chase, as her getaway set off a massive search involving airport and Lufthansa personnel, construction workers, and animal welfare advocates, as well as the use of wildlife cameras and safe-release traps.

Courts, Culture, Daily Bread, Legislature, State Government

Daily Bread for 7.14.22: Tiny Fred Prehn

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:29 AM and sunset 8:32 PM for 15h 01m 43s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1789, French revolutionaries storm and seize control of the medieval armory, fortress, and political prison known as the Bastille. (The prison contained only seven inmates at the time of its storming, but was seen by the revolutionaries as a symbol of the monarchy’s abuse of power.)   

  The Wisconsin State Journal’s editorial board writes Fred Prehn is the poster boy of government dysfunction:

All hail his majesty Fred Prehn, whom the Wisconsin Supreme Court recently coronated as a member-for-life on the state Natural Resources Board.

Prehn is the stubborn and self-important dentist from Wausau who has caused extended legal fights at taxpayer expense so he can cling to his precious post more than a year after his six-year term expired.

The good dentist should go back to fixing teeth.

Instead, he has refused to leave office long after his ego got the best of him. And with help from the high court, he’s blown a big hole in state traditions of good government.

In a 4-3 decision June 29, the court allowed Prehn to stay on the Natural Resources Board indefinitely, or at least until the state Senate finally does its job and confirms or denies Prehn’s able replacement, Sandra Nass of Ashland, whom Gov. Tony Evers nominated in May 2021. So far, the Senate has refused to act on Nass’ nomination and dozens more.

….

Just as former President Donald Trump has refused to concede his obvious defeat in the 2020 election — based on all credible evidence, reviews, audits and dozens of court rulings — Prehn is refusing to accept that his turn in power is over.

This squatter needs to leave — now. He’s not the king of the Natural Resources Board. He’s supposed to be a public servant with a term limit and some respect for the unelected position he continues to hog.

Prehn should leave, of course, but he likely won’t.

Once culture is pushed set aside (and for Trump and Prehn traditional cultural obligations hold no sway), one simply takes the biggest slice of cake and keeps eating. 

Prehn is a tiny, selfish man. Too old and too late to expect better of him. 

Bandit awaits your visit:

Animals, Birds, Daily Bread, Nature, Photography, Video

Daily Bread for 7.13.22: The 2022 Audubon Photography Awards

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:29 AM and sunset 8:32 PM for 15h 03m 10s of daytime.  The moon is full with 99.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1787, the Continental Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory. It also establishes procedures for the admission of new states and limits the expansion of slavery.

 Whitewater, and all the area of the Kettle Moraine beyond, is a place of impressive natural beauty. We have, despite the skill of our own art and design, nothing so beautiful as the natural world offers us. The 2022 Audubon Photography Awards remind as much. Immediately below, see video award winner Liron Gertsman’s entry and his description of it. Sharp-tailed grouse have a wide range that includes northern Wisconsin — 

Category: Professional 
Species: Sharp-tailed Grouse
Location: Thompson-Nicola, British Columbia, Canada
Camera: Canon EOS R5 with a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @400mm lens and Canon EF to RF mount adapter; 1/60 second at f 5.6; ISO 5000

Story Behind the Shot: This clip from the pre-sunrise hours captures Sharp-tailed Grouse males dancing and chirping at a lek. Careful not to bother them, I filmed as they bent over, stretched their wings, and stomped their feet. It sounded like rapid drumming. Their tails standing straight up, they displayed again and again. As much as I love the power of photos to tell a story, some scenes need more than a frame to capture the bigger picture.

Bird Lore: All of North America’s prairie grouse have impressive courtship dances that have been inspiring humans for millennia. Many Native American peoples of the Great Plains and the Interior West have stirring, elaborate ceremonial dances based on those of the grouse. The Sharp-tailed Grouse is a close relative of the two species of prairie-chickens, but it’s less dependent on open grasslands, favoring habitats with more brushy cover, and often moving into wooded areas in winter.

 Why big fish sightings are on the rise: