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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 9-16-10

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Good morning,

Whitewater’s forecast for today calls for a day of showers with a high of sixty-four degrees.

The City of Whitewater’s Urban Forestry will hold another work session from 9 to 11 a.m. this morning. The agenda is available online, and lists two items under an “Urban Forestry Management Plan”: “A. Grasses/lawns/landscaping; quick overview of doc. For Parks and Rec. review” and “B. Tree policies.”

It’s Market Day at Lincoln School, with pickup from 5-6 p.m. in the upper gym.

Wired has a story on a genuine innovation: Dog Poop Powers Park Lights:

Conceptual artist Matthew Mazzotta is using dog feces to power lampposts in a park in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Mazzotta’s Project Park Spark, which was funded through MIT and created in partnership with the City of Cambridge, comprises a special “methane digester” that converts freshly scooped poop into methane.

Dog owners collect their dog waste in a special biodegradable bag and throw it into the digester –- an air-tight cylindrical container, where the dog feces are broken down by anaerobic bacteria. A byproduct from that process is methane, which can then be released through a valve and burnt as fuel. In this case it is being used to power an old-fashioned gas-burning lamppost in a park.



Image courtesy Park Spark Project.

Politics

CNN Poll: Only quarter of public trusts government

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Unsurprising, as officials’ and politicians’ claims have been too grand, too self-serving, and in contrast with actual, often mediocre performance.

Sensible people just don’t believe vainglorious declarations about public service, in which officials describe themselves as though they were saints, and every project as though it were a cathedral.

A new poll indicates that only one in four Americans say they trust the government to do what is right always or most of the time, one explanation for the anti-incumbent sentiment in the country today….

The survey indicates a partisan divide, with Democrats expressing more trust in the government, but even among Democrats, only four in ten express that level of trust in government.

Via CNN Poll: Only quarter of public trusts government.

Link: Full pdf poll results.

Government Spending, School District, Taxes/Taxation

A Referendum for Whitewater’s Schools (Part 3)

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There’s a story today about the removal from the ballot of one of two referendum questions concerning our public school district. (The story rightly describes this as a ‘pause.’) See, Whitewater referendum ‘paused’.

I’ve written about a referendum approved in August for Whitewater’s public schools. The first question of two authorized for the November ballot requested approval by extension, for five more years, of about six-hundred thousand in spending and taxation beyond the state revenue limits. (See, A Referendum for Whitewater, Wisconsin’s Schools and A Referendum for Whitewater, Wisconsin’s Schools (Part 2).)

About a week ago, the district announced that the school board would entertain a vote canceling the first referendum question. From that moment, I’d say two things were certain. First, that there would have been no proposal for cancellation unless the votes for cancellation were already in hand. Second, that cancellation depended on an additional source of revenue, not on a reduction in district expenditures.

There’s no skill in seeing anything of this.

The talk today is that the first referendum question been rescinded by unanimous vote of Whitewater’s school board.

It wouldn’t have passed, as results of a similar referendum for the much wealthier Williams Bay district show. (“Two-thirds of voters in the Williams Bay School District on Tuesday turned down a referendum to allow the district to exceed the state-imposed revenue cap.”) I don’t know what the margin would have been in the Whitewater vote, but it seems unlikely that the effort would have been successful.

I was waiting, however, for a solid and serious case in its favor, to consider that case on the merits. Such a case never came; the advocacy on behalf of exceeding the revenue limits was vague, with a bit of error mixed in. Not once did the school district’s website highlight points in favor of the referendum on its main page; the lieutenant governor, soon to leave office, got more attention for her brief visit. (It’s just odd to talk about an ‘anti-referendum group’ when there was no serious, detailed pro-referendum case. )

The district rightly touts a commitment to academics, athletics, and activities, but the referendum effort wasn’t up to a competent academic standard. Part of the district’s advocacy was misuse of terms of art: tax neutrality is a policy of imposing taxes so that they do not divert, don’t favor, present consumption between alternatives. Exceeding the revenue caps for another five years isn’t an exercise in making a tax neutral. It’s simply an exercise in taxing.

This question will be back again; there will be time to consider it another day.

City

Home-building permits tumble 22 percent — Walworth County Today

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Anything that lessens construction burdens — up front — will be useful to communities hoping for a return to growth.

Building permits for new homes in Wisconsin’s biggest metro areas dropped 22% in August compared to the same time a year ago, the third consecutive month that home construction permits trailed totals from 2009.

Via Home-building permits tumble 22 percent — Walworth County Today.

City, Crime, Police

Filling Up Prisons Without Fighting Crime: Mark Kleiman on American’s Criminal Justice System

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When you look around your community, do you feel that politicians’ and bureaucrats’ policies have reduced crime, or do you feel that they’re merely treading water, with every supposed ‘victory’ followed by subsequent crimes? Even small communities spend big sums on crime-fighting, but many of these efforts make no dent in crime. Carrying on as we have been doing only puts police officers and citizens at risk from a failed status-quo policy. There’s a better way than this.

Reason.tv offers an interview with author Mark Kleiman about what’s gone wrong, why, and what can be done.



Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lDr3DQnHo

UCLA Professor of Public Affairs Mark Kleiman is “angry about having too much crime and an intolerable number of people behind bars.” The United States is home to five percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, yet, says Kleiman, our high incarceration rate isn’t making us safer.

In his book, When Brute Force Fails, Kleiman explains that, when it comes to punishment, there is a trade-off between severity and swiftness. For too long the U.S. has erred heavily on the side of severity, but if we concentrate enforcement and provide immediate consequences for law-breakers, Kleiman says we can both reduce the crime rate and put fewer people in prison.

Approximately 7 minutes.

Interview by Zach Weissmueller. Shot by Alex Manning. Edited by Weissmueller.

Quick note: Kleiman’s book is available in hardcover, paperback, or Kindle editions. more >>

Libertarians, Politics

“Murkowski not seeking Libertarian spot” – ktuu.com

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Here’s a better title:

DEFEATED BIG-GOVERNMENT REPUBLICAN, APPOINTED BY HER FATHER TO A UNITED STATES SENATE SEAT, UNWANTED BY LIBERTARIAN PARTY

She’s not seeking what the Alaska LP executive committee unanimously denied her: a chance to run on the LP ticket. They denied her a line on the LP ballot because there’s nothing remotely libertarian about this cosseted incumbent who had a seat she didn’t deserve in the first place.

She’s not seeking? No, the LP’s not offering.

See, Murkowski not seeking Libertarian spot – ktuu.com.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 9-15-10

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Good morning,

Today’s Whitewater forecast calls for a breezy day, with a high of seventy-six degrees.

Today in the Whippet City, there’s a meeting of the City of Whitewater’s public access station, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The agenda for that meeting is available online.

There’s a book fair at Lincoln School’s LMC library today. At 7 p.m., Whitewater Middle School will have a PTO meeting.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1832,

On this date a a treaty was signed between the Ho-Chunk [also referred to as Winnebago] and the United States that stipulated that the Ho-Chunk cede lands lying to the south and east of the Wisconsin river as well as lands around the Fox river of Green Bay. [Source: Oklahoma State University Library]

Here’s an illustration from Seth Eastman, from twenty years after the treaty, in 1852, entitled Winnebago Family:


Weird Tales

Bug Eaters Try to Get Some Buzz – WSJ.com

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Here’s your chance to get in on what might be the American trend of the 21st Century. Wait too long, and you’ll be just another tag-along, without the cred that genuine trendsetters have and deserve.



Link:
Bug Eaters Try to Get Some Buzz – WSJ.com

Across the country, entomophagy—the eating of insects—has gained a small audience hopeful that the inclusion of bugs in global cuisine from Southeast Asia to Mexico inspires more of a following for such dishes in the U.S.

It’s been a slow crawl. For years, the idea has been pushed by champions such as David Gracer in Rhode Island, who has a company that sells processed edible insects, and David George Gordon, a Seattle-based science writer who published the Eat-a-Bug Cookbook in 1998. Buggy fare has been featured at the Audubon Insectarium in New Orleans and at events like BugFest at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and Bug Bowl at Purdue University in Indiana.

Via Bug Eaters Try to Get Some Buzz – WSJ.com. more >>

Economy, Free Markets, Tyranny

Wall Street Journal: Cuba Unveils Huge Layoffs in Tilt Toward Free Market

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There could be few happier headlines than this: Cuba Unveils Huge Layoffs in Tilt Toward Free Market. Few happier because it signals the beginning of the end of the tyrannical regime that has so devastated Cuba. That Castro has lived to see the end of his oppressive life’s work is satisfying. There are, though, many miles ahead….

(This also lends credence, if any were needed, to the recent account from Jeffrey Goldberg that Castro said, “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.” Of course, the Cuban model to which Castro refers never worked as well or as humanely as a free alternative would have. Castro has since tried to deny the remark, but Goldberg’s account was accurate, as confirmed by the remarks of the translator.)

From the WSJ story:

Economic growth could pick up if Cuba continues to open itself to privatization in coming years, but the process will be a slow one, said Arch Ritter, an economist who studies Cuba at Carleton University in Canada. Growth would “require a major change in the way the private sector is treated,” he says. Critical steps would be lowering taxes and loosening regulations for small businesses.