Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 7:19 and sunset is 4:21, for 9 hours, 2 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6:15 PM and resumes open session at 7 PM. Whitewater’s Library Board also meets tonight at 6:30 PM.
If rural America matters, and if it needs what advocates for rural America insist it should have1, then there’d be a new Farm Bill by now. The best that these advocates and professed defenders of rural America will produce, however, is likely to be a second extension of the existing legislation:
Wisconsin’s federal lawmakers are blaming the other side of the aisle for getting in the way of extending the farm bill.
The legislation is renewed every five years to fund programs around agriculture, conservation and food assistance.
Congress failed to pass a new farm bill in September 2023 and have instead extended the 2018 bill in order to keep programs operating. After making little progress on new legislation this year, federal lawmakers are expected to pass another extension as part of a deal to fund the government into early 2025.
Emergency workers race to find survivors and restore services to the French overseas territory of Mayotte, where hundreds, possibly thousands, are feared dead from the worst cyclone to hit the Indian Ocean islands in nearly a century.
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Not what this libertarian blogger insists rural America should have, but what professed advocates of rural America (from both parties) insist rural communities should have. ↩︎
Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 44. Sunrise is 6:57, and sunset is 4:25, for 9 hours, 28 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 44.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
One reads this morning that the family of Tim Michels, an out-of-state-livin’ man with an in-state business, gave $500,000 to Trump and yet a cabinet nomination still fell through:
Michels, his two brothers and each of their spouses gave a total of $503,600 to a Trump-aligned political action committee, a Trump fundraising committee and the Republican National Committee — all on the same day in late September.
Less than two months later, Trump — known for his transactional approach to politics — offered Michels a position in his cabinet as head of the U.S. Department of Transportation last Saturday, according to sources familiar with the situation.
The deal fell through, however, when Trump’s transition committee insisted that Michels divest his holdings as co-owner of Michels Corp., the family-owned construction business worth an estimated $3.9 billion. At that point, Trump pivoted and selected former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy for the post.
That’s it? A mere half million? Michels spent far more than that trying to buy the governorship. He and his family should have understood that a Trump nomination for someone of means requires much, much larger donations than a half million.
Trump’s cabinet nominee Linda McMahon, the professional wrestling owner, received a nomination as Secretary of Education despite being named in a pending lawsuit over her alleged awareness of sexual abuse of boys as young as thirteen. The case is still in litigation, but she received a nomination anyway.
McMahon gave over ten million to Trump’s Make America Great Again PAC in 2024 alone.
Michels should have known: if eight figures will overcome pending allegations that McMahon ignored the sexual abuse of children, then seven or eight figures surely would have overcome a conflict of his business interests.
How odd about Michels: billions, and yet he still thinks small.
From the archives of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, this short film from 1977 describes the mission of the two Voyager spacecraft before they launched on their journey to Jupiter and Saturn later that year. It features early computer graphics, artist’s concepts of the outer solar system, and vintage footage of the antennas from NASA’s Deep Space Network at Goldstone, California, as well as mission control and a clean room at JPL. Voyager 1 and 2 are now the most distant human-made objects from Earth and the longest continually operating NASA spacecraft. After the twin Voyagers visited Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 2 went on to visit Uranus and Neptune as well. Both spacecraft are now in interstellar space, the space between stars.
Veterans’ Day in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 50. Sunrise is 6:42, and sunset is 4:35, for 9 hours, 52 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous, with 75.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Plan & Architectural Review Commission meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1918, Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne.
Planned Parenthood is currently providing abortions at several clinics in Wisconsin, citing a lower court decision. But a ruling from the state’s highest court could provide more finality and clarity about the legal status of abortion in Wisconsin.
There is, however, a Supremacy Clause that, if relied upon following federal restrictions, would make state action moot.
Tuesday in Whitewater will see morning and evening showers with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:21 and sunset 8:36 for 15h 15m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 12.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Community Development Authority meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress adopts the Lee Resolution severing ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain, although the wording of the formal Declaration of Independence is not adopted until July 4.
Wisconsin will get $49 million in federal support to develop a tech hub for biohealth, the U.S. Commerce Department announced Tuesday.
The goal of the state’s tech hub project is to advance technology to improve diagnosis and treatment for illness and centers on personalized health care — tailoring medical care to the distinctive genetic differences among patients.
“Wisconsin’s biohealth tech hub will be an economic driver for the state,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) said in a news conference she held Monday to preview the announcement. “It will help entrepreneurs scale up their operations and grow. It will help expand lab space and support new research. It will support people at all educational levels get the skills that they need to land a job in this emerging sector, and it will serve as a central hub for private and public partners in biotech to coordinate and collaborate so that our state can drive innovation that benefits people around the world.”
Wisconsin’s project was one of 12 tech hub proposals in the U.S. selected for full funding, Baldwin said, winnowed from nearly 200 applications initially. The tech hub program was established under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act.
Baldwin said the Wisconsin project has been projected to create more than 30,000 jobs and spark $9 billion in economic development over the next decade.
A project — public or private — should be judged by its promises measured against its results. And so, for this project: 30,000 jobs and $9 billion in economic development over a decade. If that result should come to pass, the project will be a notable success.
It’s a relatively small federal investment for these possible results. To come even part way to the stated goal would be a worthy accomplishment. It will take years, however, to see how far Wisconsin goes.
This federal biohealth project joins Microsoft’s recent private tech project in Wisconsin as a low-risk, high-reward effort. Both of those newer ventures seem as far from Wisconsin’s expenditure-heavy Foxconn project, for example, as one could get. (It would be impossible to go farther away from Foxconn, truly: to travel more would be to round the globe only to head in the direction one started.) SeeWisconsin Tries to Leave Foxconn (and Its Misguided Boosters) Behind.
As Foxconn recedes into our past, the more absurd its proponents seem, and the more ridiculous the times in which those proponents held sway. There were some like this in Whitewater in the last decade, at the ‘Greater Whitewater’ Committee and the old CDA. SeeA Sham News Story on Foxconn and Foxconn: Heckuva Supply Chain They Have There…
NASA TV – Kennedy Space Center, Florida – 25 June 2024 1. Various of ‘GOES-U’ satellite launch from the Kennedy Space Center STORYLINE: A Falcon Heavy rocket launched a new weather satellite into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday. The ‘GOES-U’ satellite is the newest and final addition to NOAA’s GOES-R series of satellites. GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite Series. This latest satellite will assist with weather-observing and environmental monitoring by tracking local weather events that affect public safety like thunderstorms, hurricanes, wildfires, and solar storms.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 75. Sunrise is 5:18 and sunset 8:37 for 15h 18m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 65.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1837, the Milwaukee Sentinel, the oldest newspaper in the state, is founded as a weekly publication by Solomon Juneau, who also was Milwaukee’s first mayor.
No one takes the risk of divulging unimportant judicial decisions. Federally and now in Wisconsin, three abortion-related court opinions or orders have been divulged beforehand in the last 25 months.
There’s some talk that abortion and reproductive issues won’t matter much in the fall. On the contrary, the issue has mattered before Dobbs and has now heightened political and legal importance since Dobbs. It is so important, in fact, that the long-held practice of confidentiality of key decisions has waned in these matters, all involving the extent of reproductive rights.
Judicial confidentiality has waned (regrettably) because these questions are so significant to so many (understandably). Legal importance won’t fade as political importance between now and November.
Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 73. Sunrise is 6:04 AM and sunset 7:53 PM for 13h 49m 16s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM. On this day in 1978,…
Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 88. Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 17m 47s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 81.5% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1620, English crown bans tobacco growing in England, giving the…
Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 18m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 61.6% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War, sailors start a mutiny aboard the…
Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 57. Sunrise is 5:38 AM and sunset 8:03 PM for 14h 24m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 90.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets at 6 PM, and the city’s Alcohol Licensing Committee meets at…
Good morning. Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 40. Sunrise is 7:24 AM and sunset 4:28 PM for 9h 03m 48s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 34% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1836, Spain recognizes the independence of Mexico with the signing of…
Good morning. Saturday in Whitewater will see periods of clouds and sun with a high of 81. Sunrise is 6:15 AM and sunset 7:36 PM for 13h 21m 49s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.0% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1832, Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native…
Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:50 AM and sunset 8:11 PM for 14h 20m 52s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 39.7% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1914, in response to the German invasion of Belgium, Belgium and the…
Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 88. Sunrise is 5:37 AM and sunset 8:25 PM for 14h 48m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 30.5% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1990, Greg LeMond, an American road racing cyclist, wins his third Tour…
Good morning. Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 62. Sunrise is 5:39 AM and sunset 8:02 PM for 14h 22m 59s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 35.4% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1992, Michigan ratifies a 203-year-old proposed amendment to the United States Constitution making the 27th Amendment law.…
