Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater brings a high of ninety-one, with a slight (20%) chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon.

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

On this day in 1886, Apache chief Geronimo surrendered to US soldiers:

For 30 years, the mighty Native American warrior had battled to protect his tribe’s homeland; however, by 1886 the Apaches were exhausted and hopelessly outnumbered. General Nelson Miles accepted Geronimo’s surrender, making him the last Indian warrior to formally give in to U.S. forces and signaling the end of the Indian Wars in the Southwest.

For all the fury of Hurricane Isaac, what was it like inside the storm’s eye? Eerily calm:

Google’s daily puzzle asks about a poem, and a place: “Lord Byron wrote a poem inspired by a castle located in which of Switzerland’s cantons?” more >>

Good morning.

Labor Day in Whitewater will be sunny and hot, with a high of ninety.

From LiveScience.com, a tiger mom (the real kind) and her cubs are caught on camera in Thailand:

On this day in 1976, the Viking 2 lander touched down on Mars.

On this day in 1970, VInce Lombardi passed away:

On this date famed Green Bay Packer coach, Vince Lombardi, died at the age of 57. Lombardi played college football at Fordham, where he was one of the legendary “Seven Blocks of Granite.” Lombardi served as coach and general manager for the Green Bay Packers from 1959 to 1967. He directed the team to five NFL championships in seven years (1961-62 and 1965-67). His 1966 and 1967 teams also made history by winning the first two Super Bowls. Lombardi’s Green Bay career was celebrated in this 1968 commemorative.

Google’s daily puzzle asks about a telephone code for a faraway place: “What city code do you dial to call the capital of the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea?”

Good morning.

Whitewater’s Sunday will be partly sunny, with a high of eighty-four.

On this day in 1945, WWII ended as Japan formally surrendered aboard the USS Missouri.

On this day in 1969, the first ATM opened for business:

Longtime readers know that in March of this year, I decided to stop posting stories from Wired, after two to which I had linked turned out to be bogus. They were not the only bogus stories at Wired, one now learns: Prof. Charles Seife has published a review of plagiarist of Jonah Lehrer’s Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com. Wired has since fired him. (Lehrer earlier resigned from the New Yorker, and lost a book contract over other lies.)

Here’s Seife on Lehrer’s misconduct:

In short, I am convinced that Lehrer has a cavalier attitude about truth and falsehood. This shows not only in his attitude toward quotations but in some of the other details of his writing. And a journalist who repeatedly fails to correct errors when they’re pointed out is, in my opinion, exhibiting reckless disregard for the truth.

It is thus my opinion that Lehrer plagiarized others’ work, published inaccurate quotations, printed narrative details that were factually incorrect, and failed to address errors when they were pointed out.

Lehrer’s transgressions are inexcusable—but I can’t help but think that the industry he (and I) work for share a some of the blame for his failure. I’m 10 years older than Lehrer, and unlike him, my contemporaries and I had all of our work scrutinized by layers upon layers of editors, top editors, copy editors, fact checkers and even (heaven help us!) subeditors before a single word got published. When we screwed up, there was likely someone to catch it and save us (public) embarrassment. And if someone violated journalistic ethics, it was more likely to be caught early in his career—allowing him the chance either to reform and recover or to slink off to another career without being humiliated on the national stage. No such luck for Lehrer; he rose to the very top in a flash, and despite having his work published by major media companies, he was operating, most of the time, without a safety net. Nobody noticed that something was amiss until it was too late to save him.

This lack of scrutiny isn’t just a journalist’s problem. It’s been true of more than one local politician, across America, too: junk theories, dodgy data, unscrutinized in a servile local press, risibly allowed to pass for good reasoning and sound policy. Readers didn’t get what they deserved from Lehrer’s publications; many residents across America haven’t received what they deserve from their governments, either.

From Google’s daily puzzle, a bit of numbers and letters: “What is the numerical value (to five decimal places) of the constant represented by the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet?” more >>