Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 61. Sunrise is 6:34 and sunset 5:40 for 11h 06m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 96.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 5:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board then holds its regular meeting this evening, going into closed session shortly after 6:30 PM and returning to open session at 7 PM.
On this day in 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from exile on the island of Elba.
Linked above is the agenda for the 2.26.24 policy review meeting and regular meeting of the Whitewater Unified School District Board. Embedded below is the agenda of the school board’s regular meeting.
Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 54. Sunrise is 6:35 and sunset 5:39 for 11h 03m 33s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
MADISON – Assembly officials have admitted former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman violated public records laws while taxpayers paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars to probe the 2020 election — an investigation that did not turn up any evidence to question President Joe Biden’s victory.
The acknowledgment by Assembly leaders was part of an agreement to settle a lawsuit filed against the Assembly’s Office of Special Counsel when Gableman occupied the office. It was filed by liberal watchdog American Oversight after Gableman testified he routinely deleted records during a hearing in another lawsuit over Gableman’s record keeping.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 35. Sunrise is 6:37 and sunset 5:38 for 11h 00m 43s of daytime. The moon is full with all of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1803, in Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the principle of judicial review.
Ever wondered how they create those terrifying zombies in movies? Creating a convincing zombie isn’t easy, as it requires a special expertise and CELL Technical Art Studios are the masters. Working on hugely-popular zombie films such as ‘Train to Busan,’ Netflix’s ‘Kingdom’ and many more, the small team have mastered the art of making rotting flesh.
And they don’t just do gore – they made props for Bong Joon-ho’s acclaimed films ‘Parasite’ and ‘Okja.’ The founder and CEO, Hwang Hyo-Kyun lives and breathes SFX, and has been deceiving audiences for more than twenty years.
This cottage industry might be under threat by CGI, but Hwang’s team of experts are still in high demand. Disclaimer: This video contains gory imagery, but the props shown in this video are created solely for entertainment purposes. Viewer discretion is advised.
If you like horror films, and you’ve not seen a Korean zombie film, then you’re missing out. Korean cinema is excellent across many genres, including zombie films. Train to Busan and Kingdom are both quite good.
In a kingdom defeated by corruption and famine, a mysterious plague spreads to turn the infected into monsters. The crown prince, framed for treason and desperate to save his people, sets out on a journey to unveil what evil lurks in the dark.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 44. Sunrise is 6:39 and sunset 5:37 for 10h 57m 53s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 99.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
The state Ethics Commission alleges Donald Trump’s joint fundraising committee and GOP state Rep. Janel Brandtjen schemed to evade campaign finance limits as part of an effort that steered at least $40,000 to the 2022 primary challenge of Speaker Robin Vos, according to records obtained by WisPolitics.
The commission this week recommended local district attorneys investigate and charge both, as well as the campaign of Adam Steen, who lost to Vos by 260 votes, eight individuals and the three county Republican parties alleged to be involved.
The referrals accuse Steen, Brandtjen, the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee and others of committing felonies.
….
The commission alleges the participants sought to take advantage of Wisconsin laws that place no caps on the size of donations political parties may receive and allow them to make unlimited transfers to candidates.
The heart of the effort was an arrangement between Steen, the county parties and others to send donations to the Langlade County GOP, the investigation found. Steen and campaign aides told those who wanted to give more than the $1,000 limit on individual donations for Assembly candidates to send the additional contributions to the Langlade County GOP with a “63” in the memo line. That references the district Vos, R-Rochester, represents. The number was a signal that the Langlade County GOP was to forward those funds or use them for in-kind donations to benefit Steen, according to the documents, which were obtained through an open records request.
A zoo-goer in India is dead after scaling a lion enclosure in hopes of taking a selfie, according to multiple reports.
The man, 34-year-old Prahlad Gurjar of the Alwar District in northern India, was visiting the Sri Venkateswara Zoological Park in Tirupati, India on Thursday when he noticed a 12-year-old male Asiatic Lion named Dungpar on display in an enclosure, according to People.
The man, who appeared to be drunk, then decided to climb over the enclosure’s four-foot safety wall and six-foot metal fence, despite protests and warnings from a nearby zoo employee, who was performing their routine rounds, The Times of India reported.
Tuesday, February 27th at 1 PM, there will be a showing of Maestro@ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Biography/Drama/History/Music/Romance
Rated R (language)
2 hours, 9 minutes (2023)
A love story chronicling the lifelong relationship of conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife/actress Felicia Cohn. Written, directed, and starring Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan. Many Golden Globe nominations and much Oscar buzz for this film.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 56. Sunrise is 6:40 and sunset 5:35 for 10h 55m 03s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 96.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board meets tonight beginning at 7:30 PM in open session in the high school library and closed session in Room 267.
On this day in 1879, in Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of five-and-dime Woolworth stores.
A $2.1 billion tax cut package that Republicans in the Legislature introduced after Gov. Tony Evers vetoed previous tax cut proposals will now go to Evers for his signature, another rejection, or a little of both.
The package includes four separate bills that passed the state Senate on Tuesday after passing the Assembly a week ago. Wednesday morning Emilee Fannon, Capitol correspondent for Milwaukee TV station WDJT Channel 58, tweeted that Evers said he would sign “some, but not all” of the bills but didn’t elaborate.
The most promising candidate for Evers’ signature is AB-1023, a bill increasing the Wisconsin child care tax credit. The tax credit is a modest offset for family child care expenses.
All but four Democrats in the Assembly last week and three in the Senate on Tuesday joined Republicans in passing the child care tax credit — making it seem likely that the Democratic governor will go along. Bipartisan support has been a leading predictor of whether Evers will sign legislation that reaches his desk. The Senate voted Tuesday to concur with the Assembly on the three other bills in the GOP package:
AB-1020 passed 22-10 on party lines. The measure raises the income ceiling on the second-lowest state income tax rate of 4.4% to $112,500 for single filers and $150,000 for married couples filing jointly.
AB-1021 passed by a vote of 23-9. It exempts from the state income tax retirement income up to $75,000 for single filers and $150,000 for joint filers.
AB-1022 passed on a 22-10 party-line vote. This measure almost doubles the tax credit for married couples.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 56. Sunrise is 6:42 and sunset 5:34 for 10h 52m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 92.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1918, the last Carolina parakeet dies in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.
All my life, I’ve thought that stories of time machines were mere fantasies. How wrong I’ve been.
As it turns out, WISGOP scientists likely have invented a working time machine:
I’m running for the U.S. Senate because I’m tired of constant division and finger pointing by politicians.
It’s time to send a fighter to Washington who will work to find common ground and restore the American Dream.
After watching the Eric Hovde campaign video, the first explanation1 for his appearance and attire is that WISGOP scientists have, in fact, found a way to travel from 2024 back to 1974, to study that earlier era’s aesthetic.
Astonishing.
Hovde’s style (and background or politics) isn’t going to work in present-day Wisconsin, but this WISGOP technological advance is impressive nonetheless.
1. The second explanation, far less savory, is that Hovde’s campaign team has been studying old 8mm amateur porn films. SeeBoogie Nights.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:43 and sunset 5:33 for 10h 49m 27s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM. The agenda for the meeting appears immediately below:
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed new state voting maps Monday morning, which he had proposed and which were passed by the Wisconsin Legislature, creating new legislative districts in time for the 2024 election cycle before the Wisconsin Supreme Court was to choose new maps.
The legislative maps represent a break in Wisconsin Republicans’ grip on legislative power and give Democrats the chance to win additional seats — and majorities in the Legislature — for the first time in over a decade.
“It’s a new day in Wisconsin,” Evers said at a press conference in the state Capitol to the cheers of surrounding advocates.
“To me, the decision to enact these maps boils down to this: I made a promise to the people of Wisconsin that I would always try to do the right thing and keeping that promise to me matters most, even if members of my own party disagree with me,” Evers said.
….
“I wanted fair maps, not maps that are better for one party or the other, including my own,” Evers said. “Wisconsin is not a red state and it is not a blue state. Wisconsin is a purple state and I believe our maps should reflect that basic fact. I believe that the people should get to choose their elected officials, not the other way around.”
There is a remaining issue of when these new maps take effect. Rich Kremer reports that
Democratic state senators, who got their first look at the legislation just before the Senate voted, accused Republicans last week of including the exception [whereby the maps would take effect in November] to guarantee Vos can run under his old district in a potential recall election. That contest is being pursued by conservatives who are angry he’s stood in the wayof impeaching Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe.
But that effective date was added to the maps bill by the Legislative Reference Bureau, not Republican lawmakers. A bureau memo said the addition “is our standard practice for addressing the initial applicability of a legislative redistricting plan.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison Associate Professor of Law Robert Yablon, who signed onto a legal brief in the redistricting case, told WPR it’s “an open question” as to which maps should apply between now and the November election.
“So, if an early election needed to be held, the likelihood is that someone would need to go back to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and ask what map would be applied,” Yablon said. “And the Wisconsin Supreme Court would need to provide some kind of guidance or remedy.”
Yablon said that because the court has already declared the existing Republican-drawn districts illegal, “it will have to be another map, perhaps the Governor’s map,” even though that map doesn’t go into effect until the fall.
On Monday, Evers said he will ask the court “to clarify that these maps will be in place for any special elections between now and the fall.”
Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:45 and sunset 5:31 for 10h 46m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 78.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board will hold a legislative breakfast at 8 AM, and Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1954, the Soviet Politburo of the Soviet Union orders the transfer of the Crimean Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR.
Former Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Andrew Hitt was nominated to be an elector if former President Donald Trump won the state in 2020, but after Trump lost, Hitt and nine other Republican electors met at the state capitol and signed documents falsely claiming Trump won.
Hitt said lawyers told him the documents they were signing were meaningless unless Trump’s legal team won its lawsuit seeking to dismiss over 200,000 votes in two Democratic counties.
Hitt said he was advised that if a court ruled in Trump’s favor and he and the other Republicans did not meet and sign the documents on Dec. 14, 2020 — when the Democratic electors were required to meet to cast their votes for President Biden — he would be responsible for Trump forfeiting Wisconsin.
“It was not a safe time,” he said. “If my lawyer is right, and the whole reason Trump loses Wisconsin is because of me, I would be scared to death.”
….
But Hitt said he didn’t believe there had been widespread fraud in the state.
Hitt said he was advised by the state GOP’s outside legal counsel on Dec. 4, 2020, to gather the other Republican electors at the Capitol on Dec. 14 and, as a contingency, sign a document claiming they were “the duly elected and qualified Electors for President” for Wisconsin.
“In case a court would overrule the election here in Wisconsin,” Hitt said he was told.
On the morning of Dec. 14, in a narrow 4-3 ruling, the state Supreme Court rejected the Trump campaign’s attempt to throw out votes cast in the two Democratic counties. Hitt said he and the other fake Wisconsin electors met anyway to sign documents falsely claiming Trump won, because he had been told the Trump campaign was still planning to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Hitt is, himself, a lawyer. He signed false documents, and now relies on other lawyers’ opinions in place of his own. He signed false documents and now contends that he was afraid not to sign. (Instead: he was not courageous enough to decline.)
Hitt is unfit for the law and should be disbarred. No person of good judgment, whether lawyer or non-lawyer, should have sympathy for him.
Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 40. Sunrise is 6:46 and sunset 5:30 for 10h 43m 54s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 69.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1930, Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft:
Elm Farm Ollie (known as “Nellie Jay” and post-flight as “Sky Queen”) was the first cow to fly in an airplane, doing so on 18 February 1930, as part of the International Air Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. On the same trip, which covered 72 miles in a Ford Trimotor airplane from Bismarck, Missouri, to St. Louis, she also became the first cow milked in flight. This was done ostensibly to allow scientists to observe midair effects on animals, as well as for publicity purposes. A St. Louis newspaper trumpeted her mission as being “to blaze a trail for the transportation of livestock by air.”
Elm Farm Ollie was reported to have been an unusually productive Guernsey cow, requiring three milkings a day and producing 24 quarts of milk during the flight itself. Wisconsin native Elsworth W. Bunce milked her, becoming the first man to milk a cow mid-flight. Elm Farm Ollie’s milk was sealed into paper cartons which were parachuted to spectators below. Charles Lindbergh reportedly received a glass of the milk.
Although Elm Farm Ollie was born and raised in Bismarck, Missouri, it is largely in the dairy state of Wisconsin where her fame has lived on.
As we were in Nepal filming « Everest Green » documentary, about pollution in Kathmandu and the Himalayan mountains, we decided to make this short film, « CHASING LIGHTS IN THE HIMALAYAS », showing the incredible beauty of this country.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 29. Sunrise is 6:48 and sunset 5:29 for 10h 41m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 60% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1965, the Ranger 8 probe launches on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon in preparation for the crewed Apollo missions. Mare Tranquillitatis or the “Sea of Tranquility” would become the site chosen for the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
When this libertarian blogger first watched the video, aroma-producing VR seemed clever but with no significant value. On reflection, I now see that my initial assessment was ill-considered. There are uses for aromatic VR.
In Whitewater, smell VR could be used to signal to those watching a public meeting when a notably bad proposal or suggestion is being made. At that moment, the smell of skunks, dog poop, or skidrow bum would flood the meeting chamber or emanate from someone’s home computer or cable box. (Admittedly, viewers would have to spray air freshener afterward, and in large quantities whenever a special-interest man took to the podium.)
Americans are creative; I’m sure we could work the bugs out. Now’s the time for the Whitewater University Innovation Center (honest to goodness, they still call it that) to start innovatin’.
