tfl: The Flatiron Life

A new wind farm has not been approved in Wisconsin for over 2 years. Wisconsin is not an ideal state for wind-power production making most of these projects small enough to fall under local control. At the local level Wisconsinites do not want turbine anywhere near their homes.

Is their just another case of NIMBY? Maybe, but Michael Miner’s story in the Reader this week gives a voice to the opposition that says they have legitimate medical concerns. It is a very interesting read about something where there is not clear consensus from what I can tell.

When we visit the Greater Flatiron Area, we drive through a large farm in northwest Indiana along US41. Being in the car, I cannot hear or feel any of the effect attributed to the turbines in the article. I am also a poor judge of distances and cannot determine if these windmills are as close to the towns they are near as described in the article.

Have any of you experienced a wind turbine?

I am a big fan of sites/rss feeds that have a single focus and are simple and declarative.

Is it Christmas?
Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the earth yet?

Now Zach passes along Do I have Pig Flu?

Now how can a site that does not ask for any personal information know if you have Swine Flu Mexican Flu Democrat Flu H1N1 Influenza A? MATH! The site has this very reasonable postscript and recommendation “(Well maybe, but statistically speaking you probably don’t so chill out and eat some bacon)”.

However as a porkinarian, I kind of hope you all do freak out and leave more pork for those of us that need it. All this swine talk has me thinking a Cuban for lunch.

We are catching up on our Daily Shows from this week. This video eximplifies why this comedy show is still doing some of the best reporting out there. It also shows how Jon is more fair and balanced than any other channel.

Yesterday, a couple of guys at work and I were having a wide ranging conversation about Google. One of those conversations were one side is defending what ever is under discussion from one angle and then criticizing it from another.

Well it came down to me being asked, “Do you think Google is too big?” My answer was not that Google is too big; I think that is hard to know without being in the company because how much size is cumbersome is a function of the ability to communicate. Before Orbitz I was in a company with few employees but communicated worse than you imagine GE or Citi might.

I think Google might be too arrogant. One of the other guys said when you have the money you can afford to be arrogant. Well, we might see how well that works, $721 a pop.

This is the latest in an awful story about a child found hanged, ruled suicide, in an Evanston elementary school.

The child’s family have an attorney looking into the case. This quote about how long the boy might have been out of supervision got me thinking.

“But you have not told us what happened at school that day that could have triggered this. And you tell us ‘as short as five minutes and as long as 40 minutes,’ this child was unsupervised. I think it’s at the least, negligent, and borders on the reckless.”

Now I will grant you that it was in the care-free days of the 80s, but I think I could have slipped away for 40 mins in elementary school. Hell we played outside in an unfenced schoolyard/public park; I probably could have ran away. I might be underestimating how much supervision I was under by the teachers at Highland, but I know that most of the things my classmates and I got in trouble for were because we were told on, not because we were seen.

Does it seem unreasonable that I child could slip away to the bathroom unnoticed for 40 min?

Literally. An expansion of the ADA went into effect Jan 1 and declares many (millions?) Americans as disabled. I am willing to bet many of you are disabled now. Congratulations?

Starting Monday, Purdue University researchers will be auctioning off the naming rights to seven recently discovered types of bats hailing from Mexico, South America, Central America and Africa. And if the bats seem too “last Christmas,” there’s also a pair of yet-to-be-named Amazonian turtles up for grabs.

Universities and ecological organizations across the country have begun to view the naming rights to new species of birds, bugs and mammals as a way to draw big bucks to fund their research.

I have mixed feelings about this. When I lean about the name of a speciese and that names is the latinized version of some European, it always rubs me the wrong way. Even though I know that ‘cow’ is just as much the proper name for cows as ‘Jakobus Tomawiaus Bovinius’ would be, I still feel there should be a “right” name.

On the other hand if the name a scientist was going to give the animal is just as made up as one i am going to give it, the university might as well make some money off of it.

Let’s see if we can get them all good names with ‘Hoosier’ in it, instead of being named a pejorative.

Here are some tips for how opposition blogger should handle themselves over the next 4 (or 8 ) years. I think they are mostly, timelessly relevant. I really respect people who can make strong arguments while still being reserved with emotion. One of my big criticisms is I think I can be very reactionary and filled with sudden irrational passion about something. When this happens I find I write posts I don’t really like later.

Sometimes I worry I am destined to not be like the even keeled people. Perhaps I am just the product of a broken home, always striving to make myself feel better with a zinger.

Do you have any role models like this or other pieces of advice or books in this area?

Patrick Swayze is OK!

…and unfortunately Bob Barr will not be President.

Charley Wesley is a well that never runs dry of hymns full of theological meaning. Today, he reminds us how those on Earth and Heaven form a single body of the Church and we, still on Earth, need to be committed join those who have gone before.

Come, Let Us Join Our Friends Above

Come, let us join our friends above, who have obtained the prize,
And on the eagle wings of love to joys celestial rise.
Let saints on earth unite to sing with those to glory gone,
For all the servants of our King in earth and Heaven are one.

One family we dwell in Him, one church above, beneath,
Though now divided by the stream, the narrow stream of death;
One army of the living God, to His command we bow;
Part of His host have crossed the flood, and part are crossing now.

Ten thousand to their endless home this solemn moment fly,
And we are to the margin come, and we expect to die.
His militant embodied host, with wishful looks we stand,
And long to see that happy coast, and reach the heavenly land.

Our old companions in distress we haste again to see,
And eager long for our release, and full felicity:
Even now by faith we join our hands with those that went before;
And greet the blood besprinkled bands on the eternal shore.

Our spirits too shall quickly join, like theirs with glory crowned,
And shout to see our Captain’s sign, to hear His trumpet sound.
O that we now might grasp our Guide! O that the word were given!
Come, Lord of Hosts, the waves divide, and land us all in Heaven.

The bold stanza gave Jos and I a double take with “the blood besprinkled bands.”