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Animals, Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.3.12

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Good morning.

A mostly sunny day with a high of twenty-four for the Whippet City, but in Los Angeles, it will be a sunny day with a high temperature of eighty-two.

If you’re a botanist, 2012 starts as a memorable year: you don’t have to record new species with Latin descriptions, and you can record those species online.  Welcome to the 21st century.

If there are many plants to be discovered, then there are also new animals to be discovered.  2011 was a year of significant animal discoveries.  See, Still a Wild World: Top New Animals of 2011. Among those discoveries: dolphins, sawsharks, psychedelic geckos, tube-nosed bats, snub-nosed monkeys, african wolves, and the eel-like protoanguilla palau.

Below is a video of protoanguilla palau, the mysterious ‘eel-a-saurus.’

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City, Politics

Predictions for 2012

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Here’s my amateur version of the late William Safire’s long-standing tradition of offering annual predictions. The list for 2012:

1. In 2012, UW-Whitewater will win the following number of national sports championships:
A. None
B. One
C. Two
D. More than two

2. The Whitewater citywide vote for president will be
A. A clear win for the GOP nominee
B. A close win for the GOP nominee
C. A clear win for Pres. Obama
D. A close win for Pres. Obama

3. In the Wisconsin presidential vote, the results will show
A. A clear win for the GOP nominee
B. A close win for the GOP nominee
C. A clear win for Pres. Obama
D. A close win for Pres. Obama

4. The national vote for president will be
A. A clear win for the GOP nominee
B. A close win for the GOP nominee
C. A clear win for Pres. Obama
D. A close win for Pres. Obama

5. In Wisconsin’s 43rd Assembly district, the winner will be
A. Incumbent Evan Wynn easily
B. Incumbent Evan Wynn in a close race
C. The Democrat easily
D. The Democrat in a close race

6. In a recall election,
A. Gov. Walker will be recalled by a large margin
B. Gov. Walker will be recalled by a small margin
C. Gov. Walker will not be recalled
D. There will be no gubernatorial recall

7. Whitewater’s North Street Bridge will be
A. finished in the first half of 2012
B. finished in the second half of 2012
C. never be finished
D. never be finished but become Whitewater’s leading tourist attraction (‘The Amazing and Exceptional Virtual Bridge’), complete with a large construction crane in the middle of the street

8. In the Wisconsin State Senate recalls,
A. the Democrats will retake the Senate
B. the GOP will retain the Senate
C. the Democrats will retake the Senate but lose the majority again in November
D. there will be no Senate recalls

9. After spring elections, Whitewater’s Common Council will be
A. more conservative
B. more liberal
C. about the same
D. there’s no left or right in Whitewater’s local politics

10. In the US Senate race from Wisconsin, the winner will be
A. Tammy Baldwin
B. Tommy Thompson
C. Mark Neumann
D. Jeff Fitzgerald

Adams’s guesses for 2012:

Here’s my local, amateur version of the late William Safire’s long-standing tradition of offering annual predictions. The list for 2012:

1. In 2012, the UW-Whitewater will win the following number of national sports championships:
C. Two. Same number of wins as in 2011.

2. The Whitewater citywide vote for president will be
C. A clear win for Pres. Obama. As in past years, the Democratic presidential nominee will sweep the city.

3. In the Wisconsin presidential vote, the results will show
B. A close win for the GOP nominee. Assuming the nominee is Romney, he takes Wisconsin in a very close vote.

4. The national vote for president will be
B. A close win for the GOP nominee. Assuming the nominee is Romney, he also takes America in a very close vote. Third party candidates, including the LP nominee, have a negligible impact on the race.

5. In Wisconsin’s 43rd Assembly district, the winner will be
D. The Democrat in a close race. Not a large margin, but a margin outside of a recount. Something less than former Rep. Hixson’s best results, but clear nonetheless in a reshaped district.

6. In a recall election,
B. Gov. Walker will be recalled by a small margin. A recall by a margin so small that there is a recount, and controversy will drag on for months. Walker’s inability to attract independents will doom his retention, but other GOP candidates will receive enough support from independent voters to win. In the end, Walker himself will have been too much for too many.

7. Whitewater’s North Street Bridge will be
A. finished in the first half of 2012, but there’s an outside chance that it will D. never be finished but become Whitewater’s leading tourist attraction (‘The Amazing and Exceptional Virtual Bridge’), complete with a large construction crane in the middle of the street.

8. In the Wisconsin State Senate recalls,
C. the Democrats will retake the Senate but lose the majority again in November. Redistricting matters.

9. After spring elections, Whitewater’s Common Council will be
C. about the same, and in any event, D. There’s really no left or right in Whitewater’s local politics

10. In the US Senate race from Wisconsin, the winner will be
B. Tommy Thompson. Thompson defeats Neumann and Fitzgerald, and then wins against Baldwin.

City

Review: Predictions for Whitewater, Wisconsin for 2011

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Let’s see how I did on predictions for 2011. The list for last year appears below, with my guesses from last year in blue, and the correct answer in red.

1. In 2011, the University will win the following number of national sports championships:
A. None
B. One
C. Two
D. More than two

Adams’s guess: C. Two.

Correct answer: C. Two, in football and wheelchair basketball.

2. Under a new focus on blighted properties, the City of Whitewater will
A. Help rehabilitate a few properties and condemn a few others
B. Make lasting headway against blight
C. Make only temporary headway against blight
D. Accidentally condemn Whitewater’s Municipal Building on aesthetic grounds

Adams’s guess: A. Help rehabilitate a few properties and condemn a few others and C. Make only temporary headway against blight. Although, there’s an outside chance that, following a party, some official will D. Accidentally condemn Whitewater’s Municipal Building on aesthetic grounds.

Correct answer: C. Make only temporary headway against blight. Only growth will meaningfully and lastingly eliminate blight.

3. Of the following print publications, how many will fold in 2011? (Daily Union, Janesville Gazette, Good Morning Advertiser, Whitewater Register)
A. None
B. One
C. Two
D. More than two

Adams’s guess: B. One.

Correct answer: None.

4. This year, how many incumbent Common Council members will be defeated in their bids for office?
A. None
B. One
C. Two
D. Three

Adams’s guess: B. One.

Correct answer: None. It was a local incumbent’s year, as it is almost every year.

5. New 2010 Census figures will show that poverty from 2000 to 2010
A. Dropped
B. Increased slightly
C. Increased significantly — up 1/10th or more as an increase over the decade
D. Was unchanged

Adams’s guess: C. Increased significantly — up 1/10th or more as an increase over the decade.

Correct answer: C. Although all the U.S. figures aren’t out for Whitewater, they are sure to corroborate other findings that show marked increases in Whitewater’s poverty.

6. In 2011, the Whitewater Innovation Center will serve as
A. a catalyst for meaningful job growth
B. a source of meaningful technological innovation
C. a waste of money, time, and greenspace
D. Wisconsin’s largest LEED-certified pigeon coop

Adams’s guess: C. a waste of money, time, and greenspace although, there’s an outside chance that it will become D. Wisconsin’s largest LEED-certified pigeon coop.

Correct answer: C. The project is a failure by its own standards. A defense of it is absurd and evidence of political dysfunction.

7. 2010 Census figures will show that compared with Jefferson, Fort Atkinson, Delavan, and Palymra, Whitewater’s economy is
A. Stronger
B. About the same
C. Weaker
D. Much weaker

Adams’s guess: C. Weaker.

Correct answer: It’s likely to be C, although all the data are not yet available. Available data on child poverty suggest we’ll fall behind Jefferson, Fort Atkinson, and Palmyra.

8. To assure the loyalty of all residents to the vision and goals of the City of Whitewater, City Manager Brunner will propose that each resident
A. Complete a Myers Briggs evaluation
B. Carry a small red book with Brunner’s most popular sayings
C. Stand in his or her doorway at dawn, and sing the city’s Ballard of Acquiescence and Assimilation Stanzas One through Three, and Five
D. Find and publish no fewer than two dozen, mostly inapt quotations to be used as proof of an enlightened sensibility

Adams’s guess: B. Carry a small red book with Brunner’s most popular sayings.

Correct answer: None of the above, although ’12’s another chance. Really, though, serial over-promising and under-delivery have taken a toll, and there’s less margin than ever for grand but empty gestures or cheerleading about the same.

9. Large swaths of Whitewater’s Business park will
A. Remain vacant
B. Remain seeded with corn (as they are now)!
C. Be filled with new businesses
D. Become a landfill and state-certified seagull preserve

Adams’s guess: A. Remain vacant and B. Remain seeded with corn (as they are now)!

Correct answer: A. Remain vacant and B. Remain seeded with corn (as they are now)!

10. The Whitewater Unified School District’s proposal to the state for a charter school will be
A. Approved
B. Denied
C. Tabled
D. Unfunded due to changes in state and federal funding

Adams’s guess: A. Approved.

Correct answer: A. Approved. This was one of the best developments of ’11, and a genuine innovation.

That’s a score of about seven of ten, and a score easily achieved when one writes one’s own questions. Some data are yet pending, but that’s a fair assessment, I think.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.2.12

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Good morning.

Welcome to the new year.

If you’re in Whitewater, your second day of the year will be mostly sunny with a high temperature of twenty degrees. In Knoxville, ahead awaits a mostly sunny day with a high temperature of thirty-nine.

I’ve had doubts about part parts of the Occupy movement’s agenda (that’s an understatement), but a protest is a good thing for a community, and these recent protests have been good for America. Embedded below is a clip from a trailer for a collaborative film about the Occupy movement.

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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.30.11

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Good morning.

Winter makes her presence felt in Whitewater: it’s a wintery mix of rain, sleet, and snow ahead today, with a high temperature of thirty six. In Pierre, South Dakota: breezy and forty-six.

On this day in 1922, a Prohibition raid in Madison:

1922 – Authorities Confiscate Illegal Alcohol

On this date authorities in Madison confiscated 1,200 gallons of “mash” and fifteen gallons of moonshine from the home of a suspected bootlegger. As the illegal liquor trade flourished in Madison’s Greenbush neighborhood duringProhibition, two rival gangs, one on Regent Street and the other located on Milton Street, fought to gain control until the “Rum War” erupted among these factions in 1923. [Source: Bishops to Bootleggers: A Biographical Guide to Resurrection Cemetery, p.189]

Via Wisconsin Historical Society.

 

Libertarians

Pew Poll on Americans’ Views of Libertarians

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I posted earlier on a Pew poll surveying Americans’ views of the words capitalism and socialism, but there’s something in the poll about their views of libertarianism, too.

Although the overall public’s view is evenly split between favorable and unfavorable, younger, upcoming generations disproportionately favor libertarianism:

The American public remains divided over the word libertarian, with 38% offering a positive reaction, 37% a negative reaction, and 24% offering that they don’t have a reaction either way.

The steepest divide in reactions to the term libertarian are not political but generational.  By a 50% to 28% margin, people under age 30 have more positive than negative feelings toward the term libertarian. Views are more split among those age 30-64, while those age 65 and older offer more negative (43%) than positive (25%) reactions.

(I’ll note that within the 30-64 age group, among those 30-49 it’s 41 to 35 favorable. It’s only those over 50 who hold relatively unfavorable views toward libertarianism.  Respondents over sixty-five are also the most likely to say that they don’t know or have no preference.)

No surprise here, but rather evidence of libertarianism’s bright future: the trend in so many aspects of American political life is toward greater respect for individual liberty.  There have been twists and turns along this path (and there will be yet more) but a continuing trend is both likely and favorable to libertarianism.

Via Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.  See, also, the full survey.

Politics

Little change in Americans’ views of capitalism and socialism

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The Pew Center reports that Americans’ views of these conflicting economic arrangements haven’t changed much since 2010. That’s from an overall survey, however; some Americans’ views and political participation have surely changed.

Which matters more: that the views of most are unchanged, or that some are of changed opinions (and perhaps increased motivation)? I’m not sure.

See, Little Change in Public’s Response to ‘Capitalism,’ ‘Socialism’ @ Pew Center.

Crime, Laws/Regulations

The Wrong Strategy on Synthetic Marijuana

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When a society’s drug enforcement focuses on the supply of a drug, drug traffickers will (1) alter the concoctions they sell and (2) change the way they sell those concoctions. Sure enough, in response to a ban on synthetic marijuana, dealers are altering their formulas to circumvent existing local laws, and are now selling though the Web. See, ‘Spice’ makers alter recipes to sidestep state laws banning synthetic marijuana @ The Washington Post.

A policy that relies principally on restricting supply, rather than on lessening the addictive desires that drive demand, is sure to fail. Sadly, the new substances may be worse than the old ones :

Just months after Virginia and dozens of other states banned synthetic marijuana, the chemists who make it have found a way to outfox lawmakers.

Spice manufacturers, who spray herbs with compounds that mimic the active ingredient in marijuana, have altered their recipes just enough to skirt the bans and are again openly marketing spice in stores and on the Web. Some users report that the new generation of products could be more potent than the original formulas….

There’s not the slightest chance I would ever use these products, or think it was safe to do so. For that matter, it’s a bad idea to smoke tobacco, let alone someone’s dubious recipe for synthetic marijuana.

The problem is demand:

“We had guys with Pentagon security clearance badges coming in to buy it,” said Alan Amsterdam, co-owner of Capitol Hemp in Adams Morgan. Although he stopped selling spice, he is dubious about efforts to control it.

“The government is one step behind science,” Amsterdam said. “It’s here to stay.”

It’s a proud headline, and a solid source of state and federal funding, to stand against a substance. But when those headlines are forgotten, and those taxpayer-funded grants are long-since spent, there’ll still be users, addicts, injuries, and ill-health.

Until society — private citizens and government, both — shifts its focus to addressing why people want these potions, there will be no meaningful and lasting success in combating their effects.