Sack him, and he’ll have even more time for projects in Texas:
“I’m a busy man. I’m in high demand. I had a schedule already set up. And also as a Texan, and I think Wisconsin folks are the same way, I keep my word. And I already had a schedule set up. I film two TV shows, and I do a lot of other work, and so I wasn’t there for the deer hunt.”
Cross-posted at Daily Wisconsin.
The 25th Annual Wisconsin Troopers’ Art & Essay Contest is accepting entries through February 15th.
I have included the contest rules and an entry form, immediately below. The forms are available for downloading and printing.
Best of luck to all contestants.
Good morning.
Here in Whitewater it’s a Thursday with mostly sunny skies and a high temperature of thirty-one. It Burlington, VT it’s about the same: mostly sunny with a high temp of thirty-eight.
In the City of Whitewater this evening, there’s a meeting about a Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) Schedule and Milwaukee Street Reconstruction Design. A key feature of a plan is finishing in a timely way, and I’m sure that’s abound to happen eventually, for at least one project. That’s simply the optimist in me.
The Wisconsin Historical Society remembers a noted Wisconsin inventor:
1917 – Inventor John F. Appleby Dies
On this date the inventor of the twine-binder, John F. Appleby died. Appleby was raised on a wheat farm in Wisconsin and searched for an easier way to harvest and bundle grains. His invention gathered severed spears into bundles and bound the sheaves with hempen twine. His invention, which was pulled by horses, was a great success. In 1878 William Deering, a farm machinery manufacturer secured the right to use Appleby’s patent and sold 3,000 twine harvesters in a single year.
In 1882 the McCormicks (of the McCormick reapers) paid $35,000 for the privilege to manufacture Appleby’s invention. Appleby spent the rest of his life in his shop trying to create additional successful machinery. [Source: Badger Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Holmes]
Google’s puzzle for today involves the unexpected combination of patents and beer: “Beer drinkers weren’t the only fans of U.S. patent 135,245. Thirteen years later, a chemist borrowed the same idea for what popular non-alcoholic beverage?”
Not long ago, Whitewater’s public school district published seventeen budget assumptions for the 2012-13 budget. Along with those assumptions, the district announced the names of a citizens’ panel to consider and offer budget recommendations.
The assumptions. If you’re wondering whether seventeen assumptions is a typo, and that I meant to write ‘seven,’ wonder no more: the citizens’ panel will work under seventeen assumptions. (The list of assumptions is available online.)
They range from the general to the particular. Even removing the obvious (“greatest priority is to provide the highest quality of education to students based on the resources available”), the large remainder of assumptions is constrictive.
Of budgetary scenarios, there are proposed only two: “The final budget will reflect one of two scenarios: a passed referendum authorizing the Board to exceed the revenue limit as permitted in State Statute 121.91(3) or significant budget reductions.”
This is a false choice, of course. One might have less significant spending reductions and a smaller referendum request, where the choices are not exclusive, but of a different proportion than an all-or-nothing approach. For all the specificity of the assumptions, the district sees only these two options. Perhaps, more accurately, because of the specificity of the assumptions, the district sees only two options.
Citizens Of the citizens advisory group, one finds citizens, of course, but they’re typical citizens only when compared with, say, Belgian nationals. It’s a group mostly of insiders, some of whom are themselves office holders or employees of the district. By the time one finds a private citizen, one is still left with a list of many of the same people who appear on so very many lists. Of the total of eighteen, there’s only one woman. Greater diversity should be expected.
It’s more than odd – but equally predictable – that among the citizens is the incumbent state representative for the 43rd district. In an election year, a controversial freshman legislator is a particularly poor choice. (How controversial, and how poor a choice, I will address at another time.) This is hardly the case of a longstanding and popular incumbent, nearing the end of a storied political career. This district should not be in the business of offering a candidate a bullet point on a campaign flyer.
Stakeholders. ‘Stakeholder’ is used sometimes to describe different groups within a community. It’s a bad term in this context, as it’s a bad concept. The use of ‘stakeholder’ implies a greater or lesser stake, but a community by law operates through a principle of equality.
Whitewater’s school district has residents. That’s all that matters. Residents who are also eligible to vote do not have a greater vote in elections than others, however much they might wish that they did. If some want more, of money or influence, let them find more in private endeavors, where the business concept of a stakeholder (and implicitly of a greater or lesser stake) properly belongs.
Why would one ever want or need to be a stakeholder, if one is already a resident? I well-understand that the idea is to capture some richer, greater meaning. The term doesn’t offer a greater meaning; it gives only a lesser one, distracting from the true and useful focus on residents.
Good morning,
Whitewater’s Wednesday will be an increasingly cloudy one, with a high temperature of thirty degrees. In Charlotte, it’s a rainy day ahead with a high temperature of sixty-four.
There’s a Landmarks Commission meeting in Whitewater today at 5 PM.
December 7th, like 9.11, will always be a memorable day. Pearl Harbor survivor and veteran, John Eck, describes his experiences that day –
Of course it does, as any option other than a free market in labor for a need this large is an inferior, inefficient solution. (It’s also an insult to reason that desperate — and dim — officials think that prison labor is an adequate replacement.)
Farmers have complained of a lack of field hands since parts of the law took effect in late September. Many have said legal residents aren’t physically able or mentally tough enough to perform the work, and others wont do so because it doesn’t pay enough.
Hall said the agriculture positions pay well above minimum wage, but many Americans find them too “physically taxing” to perform.
An Internet-based program launched by the state in October to help connect farmers with potential workers has yet to produce results.
Via Yahoo! News.
Good morning.
Whitewater’s forecast calls for a mostly cloudy day with a high temperature of thirty-two. That’s only half as warm as El Segundo, where residents will enjoy a sixty-four-degree day with sunny skies.
In the City of Whitewater today, there’ll be a meeting of the Alcohol Licensing Commitee at 6 PM, and a Common Council meeting at 6:30 PM.
The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1821, the
First Wisconsin Post Office Was Established
On this date the first Wisconsin post office was established in Green Bay. The first postmaster was John Deane and the office is still in existence. [Source:Wisconsin: Its Territorial and Statehood Post Offices, compiled by Frank Moertl, p.30]]
From Japan, there’s news of ‘the world’s most expensive car crash.’ Although these cars were certainly under insurance, the loss to society — regardless of insurance compensation — is still the loss of so many expensive machines.
Comics have been, and still are, socially relevant and significant:
Nearly 30 years after publishing V for Vendetta, writer Alan Moore and artist David Lloyd are throwing their support behind the global Occupy movement that’s drawn inspiration from their comic’s anti-totalitarian philosophy and iconography.
Moore will contribute a long-form prose piece, possibly with illustrations, to the Occupy Comics project. His writing work will explore the Occupy movement’s principles, corporate control of the comics industry and the superhero paradigm itself.
Pretending that circling the drain is just a form of Olympic swimming:
The headline on the press release indicated that U.S. Postal Service was taking a big step forward. “Postal Service Progresses With Operational Efficiencies,” it read. But in reality, the US Mail is going backwards.
With its Monday press release, the Postal Service said it must reduce operating costs by $30 billion by 2015 in order to return to profitability, and to reach this goal, it has decided that First Class Mail will no longer be delivered within one business day. Delivery times will shift from 1-3 days to 2-3 days.
The change will require time to implement (following administrative rule-making requirements), but should take place during 2012.
Matt Welch writes about the GOP’s needless fear, and silly response, to the Occupy movement:
Did you need a little Monday morning reminder of why GOP politics and libertarian ideals so rarely mix when Republicans hold power? Well check out this piece from last week by Yahoo News Chris Moody, who went inside a recent Republican Governors Association plenary session to watch spinmeister Frank Luntz give a bizarre list of 10 GOP-messaging do’s and dont’s in the wake of the Occupy Wall Street movement….
Luntz’s desire to get the word capitalism “removed” from political discourse speaks for itself. My capitalism- and bad metaphor-loving heart reckons that the best way to make a urine-soaked rose smell better is to stop pissing on it, rather than try to banish the word “flower” from your vocabulary.
These officers can expect to be hounded out, as so much federal and state money depends, not on solving the problem of addiction, but on waging an ineffective, endless campaign, all the while insisting that this time – yes, this time – everything will be different and better.
Those challenging their dismissals are buoyed by the case of Jonathan Wender, who was fired as a police sergeant in Mountlake Terrace, Wash., in 2005, partly as a result of his support for the decriminalization of marijuana. Mr. Wender won a settlement of $815,000 as well as his old job back. But he retired from the department and took up teaching at the University of Washington, where one of his courses is “Drugs and Society.”
Among those not yet ready to publicly urge the legalization of drugs is a veteran Texas police officer who quietly supports LEAP and spoke on the condition that he not be identified. “We all know the drug war is a bad joke,” he said in a telephone interview. “But we also know that you’ll never get promoted if you’re seen as soft on drugs.”
Via New York Times.com.
Good morning.
Flurries (and perhaps thereafter freezing rain) await Whitewater, with a high temperature today of thirty-six. On Manhattan’s Lower East Side, it will be a day of showers with a high of fifty-three.
Today marks the anniversary of the day in 1933 when Prohibition ended.
The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that decades earlier, in 1879,
the Humane Society of Wisconsin was organized in Milwaukee. Inspired by Henry Bergh, a New York City philanthropist, and his Humane Movement, the state Humane Society was formed to protect both animals and children. However, with the formation of child protection laws in the early 1900s, the Humane Society of Wisconsin began to focus primarily on animal protection. [Source: Humane Society of Wisconsin].
