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Music

Morrissey: Irish Blood, English Heart

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I’m neither Irish nor English, but one needn’t be to enjoy Irish Blood, English Heart.

Irish blood, English heart, this I’m made of
There is no-one on earth I’m afraid of
And no regime can buy or sell me

I’ve been dreaming of a time when
To be English is not to be baneful
To be standing by the flag not feeling
Shameful, racist or partial

Irish blood, English heart, this I’m made of
There is no-one on earth I’m afraid of
And I will die with both of my hands untied

I’ve been dreaming of a time when
The English are sick to death of Labour
And Tories, and spit upon the name of Oliver Cromwell
And denounce this royal line that still salute him
And will salute him forever

Via Morrissey Irish Blood English Heart – YouTube.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.16.12

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Good morning.

A chance of rain waits for Whitewater today, with a high temperature of thirty-six. In Los Angeles, the forecast calls for dense fog and a high of sixty-one.

It’s King day today, and the Washington Post has welcome news that the federal government will correct an inscription on Washington’s Martin Luther King Jr. statute to convey King’s intended meaning (rather than the careless and thoughtless result of others’ design).

Embedded below is a video commemorating the anniversary of a small but amazing achievement in amateur aviation: the launch of a Paper Airplane in Space (PARIS). Amazing and admirable —

Google’s puzzle for today asks about a bit of history: “You see sandbags piled at the junction of Friedrichstraße and Zimmerstraße. What symbol of the Cold War do they protect?”

History, Wisconsin

A Wisconsin archeological blunder from 1878

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When white settlers arrived in Wisconsin, they were intrigued by the ancient mounds that dotted the landscape. This sparked excitement about archaeology generally, and during the late 19th century the discovery of new “antiquities” fueled speculation about the state’s ancient past. It also led to one memorable blunder in 1878 concerning a find at Hartford, in Washington Co.

A resident there whom the press called “a student of American antiquity” found two large millstones buried in a collapsed mound. The stones had roughened surfaces and center holes through which rods would be inserted so that they could revolve. This appeared to be evidence of ancient milling, and the two stones were displayed at the State Historical Society in Madison. A report on them said that of all the relics so far unearthed in the state, “there was none more curious or valuable” than these. The discovery of prehistoric millstones in Wisconsin was reported far and wide.

That’s when a pioneer settler of Hartford spoke up.

“I have seen the stones often,” he wrote to the West Bend Democrat, and recalled that “when the railroad was first built through Hartford, there was a man by the name of Swandollar, who built him a shanty on the railroad company’s ground, east of the depot. He was a potter buy trade, and used the two mill-stones to grind his clay. Mr. Swandollar soon died, however, and left a large family without means.”

The mound was nothing more than earth that the potter had heaped up around his walls to keep the winter wind out. It collapsed over the stones when the railroad removed the shanty while expanding its yard some years earlier.

Archaeology fever had led knowledgeable people to turn modern junk into a precious ancient technology. The journalist who reported the story in 1918 charitably called it “an amusing incident of blundering eagerness.”

Via Odd Wisconsin Archives @ Wisconsin Historical Society.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.13.12

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Good morning.

It’s a snowy day in Whitewater.  This small city is lovely, surrounded by abundant natural beauty, but never lovelier than when covered in snow.  Whitewater will have a high temperature of twenty.  In Phoenix, sunny with a high near seventy.  I’ll take the snow.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1922,

WHA Radio Founded

On this date the call letters of experimental station 9XM in Madison were replaced by WHA. This station dates back to 1917, making it “The oldest station in the nation.” [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers, edited by Sarah Davis McBride]

That’s 970 AM in Madison, part of Wisconsin’s Public Radio Network.

So the theory of hot hands in sports may be true, after all: Big score for the hot hand.

Bruce Bower reports in ScienceNews that

Not only do top volleyball strikers go on scoring runs that can’t be chalked up to chance, but players and coaches notice when a player is on a hot streak and funnel the ball his or her way, say psychologist Markus Raab of German Sport University Cologne and his colleagues, who studied the hot-hand phenomenon by analyzing playoff game data from a German volleyball league.

That strategy usually works, because players who on average score on a high percentage of shots tend to get hot hands. So getting them the ball during a scoring streak boosts a team’s score, the researchers will report in an upcoming Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. This tactic backfires if a player with a low scoring average develops a hot hand and draws shots away from better scorers, the scientists hold.

Go with what’s working.

Amazing, but true: you can Get Photos Sent Directly From Mars to Your Phone.

Why not use your smartphone to get pictures from the surface of another planet?

The Mars Images app fetches images from the NASA Opportunity rover’s latest downlink as soon as they’re available. On Mars since 2004, Opportunity has far exceeded its planned mission life and is still making groundbreaking discoveries, such as the recent unambiguous evidence that water once flowed on Mars.

Developed by computer scientist Mark Powell of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the app also allows you to browse older photos from the rover’s archive. It is free and available for both iPhone/iPad and Android phones.

I’ve downloaded the app for the iPhone, and it’s astonishing.  The photos are black and white, and come with identifying information.

Here’s one of the millions-of-miles-away photos:

Free Markets, Law, Laws/Regulations, Liberty

Institute for Justice fighting the good fight

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From the IJ, highlights of ongoing work:

Litigating for Liberty. The Wall Street Journal featured IJ’s founder and president, Chip Mellor, this past Sunday. Read the in-depth interview here.

Georgia property owners are fed up with forfeiture. The state’s forfeiture law allows law enforcement to seize the property of innocent owners without convicting or even accusing them of a crime. IJ and the Georgia NAACP are coming to the rescue and urging lawmakers to do what’s right.

It’s movie time! Battle for Brooklyn has been shortlisted for an Academy Award, and with screenings across the country, it’s not to be missed. Catch it near you in D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and more. Here are the show times for this gut-wrenching tale.

Celebrate School Choice: National School Choice Week is January 22-28. Town halls, documentary screenings, and rallies are happening all over the nation! Visit schoolchoiceweek.com to register for an event near you – or to host your own.

Licensed to speak? New Orleans has made it a crime to speak without first getting permission from the government—punishable by hundreds of dollars in fines and five months in jail. Watch our video on how local tour guides are fighting back.

How are food truck entrepreneurs like the Buffalo Bills? They’re unrelenting underdogs & dreamers! This compelling video exposes the plight of food truck owners in Buffalo.