FREE WHITEWATER

Government Spending

Fed aid in financial crisis went beyond U.S. banks to industry, foreign firms

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Spending so profligate that even the United States Senate’s self-professed socialist from Vermont thinks it’s excessive:

The financial crisis stretched even farther across the economy than many had realized, as new disclosures show the Federal Reserve rushed trillions of dollars in emergency aid not just to Wall Street but also to motorcycle makers, telecom firms and foreign-owned banks in 2008 and 2009….

“The American people are finally learning the incredible and jaw-dropping details of the Fed’s multi trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street and corporate America,” said Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), a longtime Fed critic whose provision in the Wall Street regulatory overhaul required the new disclosures.

“Perhaps most surprising is the huge sum that went to bail out foreign private banks and corporations. As a result of this disclosure, other members of Congress and I will be taking a very extensive look at all aspects of how the Federal Reserve functions.”

The disclosures (and disclosure provisions) would not have been necessary had the Federal Reserve not spent — and wasted — the money.

Via Fed aid in financial crisis went beyond U.S. banks to industry, foreign firms.

Science/Nature

Arsenic-Based Microbes Challenge Chemistry of Life – WSJ.com

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Quite the innovation —

Researchers on Thursday said they had created microbes that “very likely” use arsenic in their DNA in place of phosphorus, in what may be the first exception to the formula long thought to govern the basic chemistry of life.

Force-grown in the lab, the bacteria use the notorious poison to replace molecules of the element phosphorus in critical parts of their working biology, including in the spiral backbone of DNA, which is a crucial component for all known life, the researchers said. By depending on an element so toxic to normal life, the microbes are a living demonstration of the exotic substances that alien biochemistry might, in theory at least, use on other worlds



Via Arsenic-Based Microbes Challenge Chemistry of Life – WSJ.com. more >>

Politics

Jennifer Rubin Moves to the Washington Post

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Jennifer Rubin, the veteran blogger formerly writing at Commentary‘s Contentions blog, has moved to the Washington Post, where she’s blogging at Right Turn.

I read from among the left, right, and libertarian, and I’m glad that I do — the conservative Jennifer Rubin is a compelling polemicist. She’s far more — educated, sharp, principled, interesting, indefatigable. I’m in agreement with her (as one can guess) only part of the time: there are many issues on which conservatives and libertarians part company.

No matter — I don’t read for agreement, but for understanding.

On her last day at Commentary, here’s part of what she had to say:

My writing career began as a lark and has become a passion, the most satisfying and engrossing occupation I could have imagined. The opportunity to write in COMMENTARY’s pages and on this website – and throw some elbows, take the barbs (from those whom I’m delighted to have enraged), and report what the mainstream media refused to – has allowed me to contribute to the political debate and, along the way, break news. I owe COMMENTARY’s editors, staff, and writers an immense debt of gratitude….

I have received the benefit of my readers’ extraordinary wisdom, occasional corrections and objections, and good humor. (I’ve often thought that many of you should be writing rather than just reading.)

So very well said.

I had linked to Contentions on her account, and I will update my blogroll to include her new location.

I’ll be sure to visit her there, happily and frequently.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 12-2-10

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Good morning,

It’s a partly sunny day ahead for Whitewater, with a high temperature of thirty-one degrees.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1954,

McCarthy Censured by Senate

On December 2, 1954, the United States Senate voted to censure Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. Declaring his behavior “contrary to senatorial traditions,” the 1954 Senate resolution officially condemned McCarthy’s reign of anti-communist terror.

McCarthy was worse than an embarrassment, but it’s pure ignorance to call McCarthy’s actions a ‘reign of anti-communist terror.’ Those looking for a reign of terror — and this should be clear to anyone writing for the Wisconsin Historical Society — will find it in communism, itself. For a bit of help in this direction, the Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression is just what the doctor ordered.

It would make a fine Christmas present for anyone needing a better understanding of, well, history.

In the meantime, here’s a short video from YouTube that will help lift any lamentable ignorance of the last century’s terror —



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Uncategorized

December’s Agenda

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Like most people, with just one month left in the year, I find that there’s a long task list ahead. Even if not every task will be completed this month, it’s worth taking stock.

At FREE WHITEWATER, there’s more to write about Whitewater’s Innovation Center, tax incremental financing, and officials’ use of email, among other topics.

I’m just as interested in more posts about aspects of life here, including reviews of local shops and restaurants. (At the suggestion of someone in town, restaurant reviews will require a more comprehensive set of standards than I had originally drafted. It’s back to the drawing board, so that I can become a halfway-proper restaurant critic, if not a proper one.)

FREE WHITEWATER is a now mix of local, state, and national topics.

That will change in January, with the publication of a second website, devoted mainly to Wisconsin and national stories. There’s much to do, to get that second site ready, but just as much thereafter to write more liberally about aspects of Whitewater that I’ve neglected. (I’m not sure what to do about comments — whether I’ll move them to the new website, keep them here, or both.)

Nor do I know where Walworth County stories will go, between the two sites, but there are some topics there to explore.

After that new site begins, and gets a good start, there are still two ebooks to finish, one about municipal government, and one descended from a twiller that I wrote about a fictional town. I’m not a writer, but it is great fun writing.

There are other loose ends that I’ve not listed here, but that I have marked among my tasks.

Whitewater, though, should be a particular interest for anyone thinking about Wisconsin: this small town’s beautiful, eccentric, but sadly troubled, too. Its charm makes it a great place to write; its troubles — often self-inflicted — make it a place worth contending over, as there’s need for reform. Wisconsin and America have some of these same troubles, but Whitewater is a small town with outsized need.

This month, however planned, is yet only one month; a new one will be here soon enough. This month or another, the right and need for free and vigorous commentary will be unchanged.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 12-1-10

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Good morning, Whitewater

Today’s forecast calls for a day of flurries, with a high temperature of twenty-eight degrees.

In the City of Whitewater today, there will be a meeting of the Landmarks Commission at 5 p.m. The meeting agenda is available online.

Here’s a trailer for a film with a fascinating premise: “A sci-fi thriller from the mind of Duncan Jones, centered on a soldier who wakes up in the body of a commuter who witnesses a train explosion.”



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Education, School District

Charter Schools Naturally Depend on Sound Charters

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I’ve been asked about a charter school for my small town. Whitewater, Wisconsin may have a public charter school next year. The Whitewater Unified School District received a grant for planning, and may receive additional funding for a school. See, Whitewater charter school on track for 2011.

Charter schools typically have support across politics, and libertarians (for example) have long supported them.

It’s worth stating, though, the obvious: a merit of charter school depends on its charter. Until a community sees what the charter establishes, there’s not much to assess.

(Implicit from the school’s charter comes a necessary, second question: who will be eligible for attendance at the school, by what process? In a well-ordered community, a sound charter offers its own, reasonable answer — via a fair process — to this second question. In a politically disordered community, the second question receives an unjust answer, or an ambigious answer that invites bias. The greater the separation between these two questions, the greater the unfairness or ignorance of a proposal. The closer these two questions, the greater the fairness and soundness of a proposal.)

I have no doubt much thought has gone into all this. There will be answers forthcoming, and only then will one be able reasonably to say what a charter school would offer Whitewater.

Laws/Regulations, School District

Wisconsin’s Law on ‘Raced-Based’ School Mascots

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Several public schools in Wisconsin have mascots named after Indian tribes, or famous tribal leaders. I’m am neither a supporter nor an opponent of those mascots’ nicknames. Communities in Wisconsin should be free to decide for themselves what they’d like to call their teams. They may choose wisely, they may chose foolishly, but it should be a matter for residents of those districts to decide. (My small town of Whitewater, Wisconsin has the whippet as a mascot, and that’s a fine choice.)

Unfortunately, Wisconsin law allows the state superintendent to decide whether local public districts may use a tribal name, or other ‘race-based’ name. See, Wis. Stat. 118.134, et seq.

Although the law allows residents of a district to challenge a school mascot name, residents could always challenge a district’s mascot name, through advocacy and politicking. What’s different is that our current law shifts the burden of proof to a district to show that a race-based name “does not promote discrimination, pupil harassment, or stereotyping, as defined by the state superintendent by rule.”

If our law should not shift decision-making to the state superintendent, then worse still is the shifting of the burden of proof to the district. The burden of proof should rest with those who seek change (here those who are aggrieved that a district uses a tribal name).

Shifting the burden is more than shifting the burden; it’s stacking the deck. These names may be offensive — the process for removing them is an unfair change in the burden of proof. Wisconsin’s mascot law is the wrong way to try to achieve change.

I wouldn’t want a tribal nickname for my district’s mascot; even less do I support state determination of other districts’ choices, through a fixed, stacked process.

Repeal of the law will preserve opportunities for advocacy while limiting state interference in local districts’ choices.

See, Kedzie joins effort to repeal race-based school nickname bill.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for November 30, 2010

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Good morning,

Whitewater’s forecast calls for a wintry mix, of drizzle, sleet, and snow showers, with a temperature falling from the forties.

Over at ScienceNews.org, there’s a story of discovery, entitled, Amphibian debuts: Hunt for lost frog turns up new species in Colombian rain forests. Rachel Ehrenberg writes that

Finally some good news on the frog and toad front: Scientists on an amphibian expedition in Colombia’s cloud and rain forests discovered three new species, including a tiny beaked toad….

A new species of rocket frog, a kind of poison dart frog belonging to the genus Silverstoneia, also was described for the first time. As was a toad so unfamiliar that researchers can report only that it has bright red eyes and lives high in the Chocó montane rain forest.

There’s something endearing about that description: “so unfamiliar that researchers can report only that it has bright red eyes and lives high in the Chocó montane rain forest.”

For those in Wisconsin interested in seeing amphibians close up, there’s an exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum entitled, Frogs: A Chorus of Colors, with a score of species on display. The exhibit runs through January 2nd, 2011.



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Government Spending

Cato: Five Ways to Cut Military Spending Today

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The foundation of Americans’ security is a free, prosperous nation.

The U.S. military has an important purpose, protecting Americans, but that purpose has been distorted over the years. Here are five military spending cuts Congress and the President can make today while they undertake the harder task of rethinking the true purpose of the military and then restraining its use. These recommendations are derived from the report, Budgetary Savings from Military Restraint.



Link: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/five-ways-to-cut-military-spending-today/ more >>

Liberty

How Capitalism Saved the Pilgrims | Cato @ Liberty

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Daniel Griswold wasn’t the only one whose father told him the truth about how the Pilgrims survived. It’s a story worth repeating each year, generation to generation —

When I was growing up, my father would occasionally tell me the story around this time of year of how private property rights saved the Pilgrims from starvation.

When the Pilgrims first arrived in 1620, as my father told the story, they tried to live communally according to the spirit of the Mayflower Compact. What crops they grew were put in a common storehouse and then apportioned according to each family’s need. The small colony struggled to survive for two or three years until its leaders declared that every family henceforth would be responsible for growing its own food. The new system proved much superior at putting food on the table.

Via How Capitalism Saved the Pilgrims | Cato @ Liberty.