Good morning.

It’s a rainy day in Whitewater, with a high temperature likely to be around forty-seven.  In San Diego, there’ll be partly cloudy skies and a high of sixty.

Whitewater’s Tech Park board meets today at 8 AM.  On the agenda, for closed session, is the same item that’s been on prior of the agendas over many months: “Whitewater University Technology Park Executive Director Search & Screen Update.”

They’re bound to find someone eventually, as the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the American population is over 312,773,435, and the world population is over 6,981,195,998.  There simply has to be someone who’d run a public project that took millions to shift public employees from one struggling town to another. Considering only those in America, it would take just .00000031972% of our population to find someone, anyone, to take that job.

The Wisconsin Historical Society marks this as a notable day in the history, so to speak, of Wisconsin and (really) American history:

1893 – Frederick Jackson Turner Delivers Frontier Address
On this date Frederick Jackson Turner delivered the “Significance of the Frontier in American History” address at the forty-first annual meeting of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. [Source: SHSW Proceedings, 1893, pg. 79-112]

Thanks, by the way, for the kind messages about yesterday’s baby sloth video; one discovers all sorts of endearing films like that, and they’re a treat to watch.

Google’s puzzle for today is about tiny Rhode Island, but it wouldn’t be a tiny place after what Google asks: “If you turned the entire state of Rhode Island into a farm, how many acres would your farm have?”

Good morning.

For Whitewater today, it’s likely to be a cloudy day with a high temperature of forty-two.  In Anchorage, the forecast calls for a cloudy day, but with temperatures in the teens to lower twenties.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1864,

Emil Seidel was born in Ashland, Pennsylvania. His family moved to Wisconsin when he was a child. As a young man he lived in Germany where he trained as a woodcarver. While in Germany, Seidel became a socialist and when he returned to the United States he joined the Socialist Party of America. He settled in Milwaukee and in 1904 Seidel and eight other socialists were elected as city aldermen.

In 1910, the Socialist Party in Milwaukee selected Seidel as their candidate for mayor. With the support of Victor Berger’s newspaper, the Milwaukee Leader, and the city’s large German-born population, Seidel became the first socialist mayor of a major city in the United States.

One of Seidel’s achievements was to introduce the country’s first worker’s compensation program in 1911. Other initiatives included adult and worker education classes and free medical and dental examinations for school children. Emil Seidel also served as a city alderman from 1916 to 1920 and again from 1932 to 1936. He died on 24th June, 1947. [Source: University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Archives].

Here’s a trailer, for an upcoming film, about the world’s only sloth orphanage, in Costa Rica. Enjoy — I think it’s impossible not to like this trailer —

The film will appear on Animal Planet this weekend:

The trailer is just a taste of the new documentary, “Too Cute! Baby Sloths,” airing Saturday Dec. 17 at 8 p.m. ET on Animal Planet. The show is filmmaker Lucy Cooke’s follow-up to her wildly popular internet video “Meet the Sloths.” Both were shot at the Aviarios Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica.

The sanctuary takes in any sloth in need, but is mostly populated by orphaned baby sloths who lost their mothers to power lines or road traffic or other accidents. There are currently around 160 sloths there.

Good morning.

Monday will be a mild day for Whitewater, with a high temperature of forty-one. In New Haven, CT today, about the same temperature: sunny and forty-four.

It’s an afternoon of public meetings for Whitewater: the CDA meets at 4:30 PM, the Planning Commission at 6 PM, and the Library Board at 6:30 PM.

If you’re surfing the Web, and if you weren’t you wouldn’t be reading this post, then today’s an important anniversary: it’s the birthday of the late Robert Noyce, Intel co-founder and one of the inventors of the microchip.

Google celebrates his birthday today with a doodle:

Good morning.

Our week in the Whippet City ends, and the weekend begins, with a sunny and cold day, and a high temperature of twenty-three. That’s not much different from the forecast for Santa Fe, New Mexico: thirty-five and sunny. Warmer, but only a bit above freezing.

NASA has a video explaining lunar eclipses, of which there will be one tomorrow —

NASA’s solid explanation of lunar eclipses isn’t the only information the agency might care to offer, as the NASA Inspector General is looking for a different explanation entirely:

In a report issued by the agency’s Inspector General on Thursday, NASA concedes that more than 500 pieces of moon rocks, meteorites, comet chunks and other space material were stolen or have been missing since 1970. That includes 218 moon samples that were stolen and later returned and about two dozen moon rocks and chunks of lunar soil that were reported lost last year.

NASA, which has loaned more than 26,000 samples, needs to keep better track of what’s sent to researchers and museums, the report said. The lack of sufficient controls “increases the risk that these unique resources may be lost,” the report concluded.

Via The Misplaced Stuff: NASA Loses Moon, Space Rocks – ABC News.

Google’s puzzle for today continues a celestial theme: “The Bayeux Tapestry depicts a visit from a celestial body that was considered a bad omen in medieval times. What year did this “apparition” next appear?”

Locally, today is the anniversary of the first Milwaukee newspaper:

1844 – Milwaukee’s First Daily Newspaper Published
On this date Milwaukee’s first daily newspaper, The Daily Sentinel, was published. David M. Keeler served and manager and C.L. MacArthur was the editor. [Source: History of Milwaukee, Vol. II, p.49]

Source: Wisconsin Historical Society.