Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 83. Sunrise is 6:16, and sunset is 7:34, for 13h 17m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 27.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4:30 PM, and the Finance Committee meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1830, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad‘s new Tom Thumb steam locomotive races a horse-drawn car, presaging steam’s role in U.S. railroads.
Screenshot: RFK Jr. explains that whole dead bear cub incident Screenshot: Stein impersonates a homegrown candidate in campaign video
And look, and look: in an alternative history of our time, there might have been a legitimate Green Party candidate fighting for environmental issues, etc. That’s not Jill Stein. She is Putin’s catspaw: easily a fellow traveler, if not a fifth columnist. Her presence on the ballot serves only to siphon votes from the Democratic candidate. In this way, the right judicial decision (to keep her on the ballot) turns out to be the wrong political decision (Stein’s candidacy serves only those at home and abroad who would weaken American liberal democracy).
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 94. Sunrise is 6:15, and sunset is 7:36, for 13h 23m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 37.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1832, Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.
The idea for this invention began at Kleinsteuber’s Machine Shop in Milwaukee in the late 1860s. A mechanical engineer by training, Sholes, along with associates Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soulé, spent hours tinkering with the idea. They mounted the key of an old telegraph instrument on a base and tapped down on it to hit carbon & paper against a glass plate. This idea was simple, but in 1868 the mere idea that type striking against paper might produce an image was a novelty. Sholes proceeded to construct a machine to reproduce the entire alphabet. The prototype was sent to Washington as the required Patent Model. This original model still exists at the Smithsonian. Investor James Densmore provided the marketing impetus that eventually brought the machine to the Remington Arms Company. Although Remington mass-marketed his typewriter beginning in 1874, it was not an instant success. A few years later, improvements made by Remington engineers gave the machine its market appeal and sales skyrocketed. [Source: Wisconsin Lore and Legends, p.41]
Last week, advocates for the Green Party expressed alarm that the Wisconsin Supreme Court asked that political party to file briefs in a lawsuit from the Wisconsin Democrats aimed at keeping the Greens off the November ballot. Wisconsin’s high court gave the Greens a tight deadline, leading the party to contend it was being treated unfairly.
Yesterday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court dismissed the suit aimed at keeping the Greens off the ballot. The Greens misunderstood the purpose of the tight deadline to file briefs. Henry Redman reports that
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit from the Democratic National Committee challenging Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s placement on the ballot in November.
With just one day before the Wisconsin Elections Commission decides which candidates will be allowed on the ballot this fall, the Court moved quickly in the case, asking parties late last week to file briefs in response to the Democrats’ petition to the Court before the Green Party of Wisconsin even had a lawyer.
The Democrats had previously filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) against the Green Party’s candidate for president, Jill Stein, alleging she should not be placed on the state’s presidential ballot because the Green Party of Wisconsin does not have official state officers who can serve as presidential electors.
The WEC denied the Democrats’ complaint on a technicality, prompting the party to bring the lawsuit to the Supreme Court.
Earlier this year, the WEC voted to allow the Green Party onto the ballot because it got at least 1% of the vote in a statewide election in 2022.
(Emphasis added.)
The Wisconsin Supreme Court set an accelerated briefing deadline not to burden the Greens but to dispose of the complaint against them before the Elections Commission meeting.
Admittedly, there’s something laughable about an established political party (Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has been running for president, while simping for Putin, for years) whose Wisconsin Party officials whine that
According to Michael J. White, co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party, his party had no legal representation in Wisconsin when he was notified of the court order.
“That just strikes me as a little bit unreasonable,” he told WPR on Thursday afternoon.
Pete Karas, the state Green Party’s elections chair, said they found a lawyer “around midnight” after “a zillion phone calls.” That lawyer is Milwaukee-area attorney Michael Dean.
The next morning, the party sent out a mass email to its followers asking for donations.
“Lawyers are expensive, and we need your help today to ensure we can pay for these much-needed legal fees,” the mailer said.
Funny that the Green Party didn’t have a Wisconsin lawyer beforehand. One would have expected a better level of preparation from a 2024 vote-siphoning operation.
Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 92. Sunrise is 6:14, and sunset is 7:37, for 13h 23m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 48.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1920, the 19th Amendment to United States Constitution takes effect, giving women the right to vote.
Space is littered with man-made trash that threatens satellites, space missions and life on Earth. A newly designed European Space Agency robot will drag the junk back toward Earth, where it will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere or drop into the ocean.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 76. Sunrise is 6:10, and sunset is 7:44, for 13h 34m 01s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 88.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1902, Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to make a public appearance in an automobile.
On this day in 1920, native Milwaukee runner Arlie Schardt won a gold medal in the 3,000-meter team race at the Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium. Schardt was part of a three-man team that included Hal Brown and Ivan Dresser.
These stories aren’t equally useful, and it’s easy to see why. Gilbert wants to highlight continued decline of Democrats in rural counties, but the story head doesn’t match the story itself:
The Democratic Party’s geographic foothold has shrunk in Wisconsin, amid a plunge in support among rural voters in the central, western and northern counties.
The new election map has a lot less “blue” than the old one.
That hasn’t stopped Democrats from winning big elections, which it has done with regularity in the Trump era. Winning statewide races is not about winning the most counties or the greatest acreage, but the most votes.
(Emphasis added.)
Those areas where one finds the most votes are also where most people live, and where legislative districts are situated by population. The headline says trouble (Democrats have to ‘grapple’) but results in statewide race after statewide race say otherwise.
The decline among Democrats in low-population areas is offset by gains among Democrats in areas of high population. Bruce Thompson writes:
The Milwaukee area is following the national trend in which close-in suburbs become increasingly Democratic, while more rural areas become more Republican. Though there are many theories on what is driving this trend, it still remains something of a mystery. But clearly the trend is changing two of the three WOW counties.
The increasingly blue Milwaukee area has a greater population than the rural counties that Gilbert over-emphasizes.
Two analyses, Gilbert’s and Thompson’s, but only the latter presents the key trends perceptively all the way through from head to tail.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 74. Sunrise is 6:09, and sunset is 7:45, for 13h 36m 42s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 95 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.
NASA’s Cold Atom Lab studies the quantum nature of atoms, the building blocks of our universe, in a place that is out of this world – the International Space Station. This animated explainer explores what quantum science is and why NASA wants to do it in space. Quantum science has revolutionized our understanding of the physical world and led to new technologies including cellphones, computers, medical devices, and GPS. However, Earth’s gravity poses challenges for studying the quantum behaviors of atoms. To overcome those challenges, Cold Atom Lab operates in microgravity. Using lasers and magnetic fields, scientists run the lab remotely from Earth, cooling groups of atoms to temperatures colder than any naturally occurring matter in the universe. Cold atoms, nearly motionless, reveal their behaviors more clearly. The absence of Earth’s gravity allows for prolonged atom study, opening new avenues in quantum exploration.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:06, and sunset is 7:50, for 13h 44m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
UW-La Crosse political science professor Anthony Chergosky considers the rejection of two proposed state constitutional amendments and outcomes of two congressional races in the 2024 partisan primary.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 83. Sunrise is 6:03, and sunset is 7:53, for 13h 49m 55s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 87 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1930, the first color sound cartoon, Fiddlesticks, is released by Ub Iwerks.
When businesses shuttered and schools went remote during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Wisconsin residents flocked to parks and nature trails across the state.
Now, a new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum found that Wisconsinites are still using state parks at higher rates than before the start of the pandemic. The report found there were 518,848 state park sticker sales recorded in 2023, up from 346,491 in 2019 — a nearly 50 percent increase.
Tyler Byrnes, the lead researcher on the report, said there were massive increases in outdoor recreation seen across the state in 2020.
The Metro Richmond Zoo announced the birth of two female snow leopards, Sasha and Kira. They were born to parents Elsa and Nitro on April 28. At the beginning of August, they were old enough to begin exploring their outside habitat.
Thursday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 76. Sunrise is 6:02, and sunset is 7:55, for 13h 52m 30s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 78.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1944, Operation Dragoon begins as Allied forces land in southern France.
In suburban Milwaukee, state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, lost to state Sen. Dan Knodl, R-Germantown, in a race for the recently redrawn 24th Assembly District.
And in eastern Wisconsin’s new 20th Senate District, former state Rep. Timothy Ramthun of Campbellsport was defeated by state Sen. Dan Feyen of Fond du Lac.
….
Brandtjen lost despite being endorsed by former President Donald Trump ahead of the primary. Brandtjen has promoted false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and has echoed calls for the results to be overturned in Trump’s favor.
These two defeats are not enough, but they are something. Some days one settles for something.
Stonehenge, the Neolithic stone circle on Salisbury Plain in southern England, has captivated archaeologists, antiquarians and sightseers for centuries. For decades researchers have tried to find the origins of the stones, with some being sourced to the surrounding landscape and some from the Preseli Hills in Wales. But new geochemical analysis of the Altar Stone, a partially buried slab of sandstone at the center of the stone circle, suggests that this stone originally came from the Orcadian Basin in Scotland, over 700 kilometers away.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 82. Sunrise is 6:01, and sunset is 7:56, for 13h 55m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 68.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill sign the Atlantic Charter stating postwar aims.
Two proposed Wisconsin constitutional amendments on the ballot yesterday failed decisively:
Statewide, Question 1 (Prohibit Legislature from Delegating Appropriations) lost 57.4% to 42.6% and Question 2 (Require Legislative Approval for Federal Funds) lost 57.5 to 42.5%.
In Whitewater, the questions had a similar fate (combining totals from Jefferson and Walworth counties):
Question 1 (Prohibit Legislature from Delegating Appropriations) lost 68.8% to 31.2% and Question 2 (Require Legislative Approval for Federal Funds) lost 68.6 to 31.4%.
See also No on Amendment Questions 1 and 2 (“Questions written nebulously, and presented to voters on a month of traditionally lower turnout, deserve rejection. Government, and the questions it presents, are meant to be more than semantic trickery”).
Matthew Dominick, a flight engineer on the International Space Station, shared on Monday (August 12) a captivating timelapse showcasing the moon setting among vibrant red and green auroras.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:54, and sunset is 8:08, for 14h 12m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 8.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1947, Thor Heyerdahl‘s balsa wood raft, the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America
Christine Durrance, a professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, writesWisconsin’s opioid crisis complicates an already troubled health care system (‘54% of respondents in UW-Madison survey report health care as quite or an extremely big problem for Wisconsin; 69% feel this way about health care being a problem for the country’):
Health care is the third most concerning issue during this presidential election year, according to WisconSays survey data collected as part of this year’s Main Street Agenda, which the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison is using to highlight what matters to Wisconsin throughout 2024.
In this statewide representative survey, 54% of respondents report health care as quite or an extremely big problem for Wisconsin; 69% feel this way about health care being a problem for the country. These sentiments are felt across the state with 58% of Democrats and 54% of Republicans viewing it as quite a problem or an extremely big problem for the state. There is also little divide between urban (54%) and rural (53%) residents.
The effects of the epidemic on our communities and health care system reach far beyond overdose mortality. One understudied aspect of the opioid crisis is its impact on women, infants, and children.
A hundred culture-war issues, pushed relentlessly, have only distracted from, but not alleviated, tens of thousands of yearly tragedies.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy and windy with a high of 74. Sunrise is 5:53, and sunset is 8:08, for 14h 14m 55s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 4.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Eau Claire will be host to not one, but two presidential campaign stops on the same day this week.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, announced last week she’d visit the western Wisconsin city with her as-yet-unannounced running mate on Wednesday, Aug. 7. [Since this report, the Harris Campaign announced Gov. Tim Walz as V.P. Harris’s running mate.]
On Monday, the Trump campaign announced that Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance , the Republican vice presidential nominee, will hold a rally in Eau Claire that same day.
There’s a false quadrennial complaint that the two major parties are the same. The complaint has never been accurate; it’s never been less accurate than now. Democrats Harris-Walz and Republicans Trump-Vance could not be further apart and yet be in the same society.
If it all seems the same, the problem isn’t with the choice. It’s with the grasp of those who can’t see the differences.
The choice is stark and the imperative clear: Harris-Walz.
The Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft was captured by the International Space Station’s robotic arm on on Aug. 6, 2024 at 3:11 a.m. (0711 GMT). [Full Story](https://www.space.com/cygnus-ng-21-ar…) According to Space.com. the freighter — named the S.S. Richard “Dick” Scobee, after the commander of the tragic STS-51-L mission of the space shuttle Challenger — delivered nearly 8,200 pounds (3,720 kilograms) of food, scientific gear and other supplies to the ISS.
Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 83. Sunrise is 5:52, and sunset is 8:09, for 14h 17m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.0 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6 PM and returns to open session at 7 PM.
On this day in 1884, the cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty is laid on Bedloe’s Island (now Liberty Island) in New York Harbor.
Wisconsin Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, who is running for her third term, outraised her opponent, Republican businessman Eric Hovde nearly 7-1 last month, according to recent Federal Election Commission reports.
Baldwin reported more than $2.5 million in receipts from July 1-24, according to the FEC pre-primary reports. Almost $2.1 million of that came from individual contributions, and according to WisPolitics, of that, $773, 270 came from individuals who contributed less than $200.
Baldwin reported spending about $3.4 million, and ended the period with $6.3 million on hand.
Meanwhile, Hovde trailed the incumbent significantly, reporting $374,000 in contributions in the same time period. He spent nearly $2.7 million, and ended the period with $3.1 million on hand. He has kept up with Baldwin in part because of the $13 million in personal loans he has put into his campaign since February.
Hovde’s lack of appeal isn’t surprising. It’s what happens when Mitch McConnell creates a carpetbagger in a mad scientist’s laboratory.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 86. Sunrise is 5:50, and sunset is 8:10, for 14h 19m 39s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1914, in response to the German invasion of Belgium, Belgium and the British Empire declare war on Germany. The United States declares its neutrality.
Voters will see two questions on the state’s Aug. 13 primary ballot to amend the state constitution, both of which would shift power to direct federal funding from the governor to the Legislature.
Questions written nebulously, and presented to voters on a month of traditionally lower turnout, deserve rejection. Government, and the questions it presents, are meant to be more than semantic trickery.
QUESTION 1: “Delegation of appropriation power. Shall section 35 (1) of article IV of the constitution be created to provide that the legislature may not delegate its sole power to determine how moneys shall be appropriated?”
QUESTION 2: “Allocation of federal moneys. Shall section 35 (2) of article IV of the constitution be created to prohibit the governor from allocating any federal moneys the governor accepts on behalf of the state without the approval of the legislature by joint resolution or as provided by legislative rule?”
If a majority of those voting on the ratification question vote “yes,” then the amendment has been ratified and becomes part of the constitution upon certification of the results by the chairperson of the elections commission, unless another date is specified in the amendment. (Wisconsin Statute 7.70(3)(h)).
It appears that, for the first time, the people will be asked to approve a constitutional amendment at a primary election. All previous constitutional amendments have been submitted to the voters for approval at the non-partisan general (April) election, or the partisan general (November) election. (Wisconsin Blue Book, p. 509-514).
NASA’s Perseverance rover has made very compelling observations in a Martian rock that, with further study, could prove that life was present on Mars in the distant past – but how can we determine that from a rock, and what do we need to do to confirm it? Morgan Cable, a scientist on the Perseverance team, takes a closer look.
Friday in Whitewater will be increasingly sunny with a high of 86. Sunrise is 5:48, and sunset is 8:13, for 14h 24m 16s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 3.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
At Urban Milwaukee, Bruce Murphy has telling finds about Eric Hovde’s views of Black men and welfare policy. Murphy writes Hovde Blasted for ‘Bigoted’ Comments on Black Men (GOP US Senate candidate says Black men have lived on ‘handouts’ and ‘welfare checks’):
On the Jay Weber show on WISN on April 5, Hovde declared that “a lot of people in the minority communities, particularly young black men… are moving in the conservative direction” and “no longer want to just live on just getting welfare checks. They want to be part of the American entrepreneurial dream.”
Hovde repeated these kind of statements on other programs, including on Fox News on April 4, where he said that “Young Black men… want to get off of welfare, they don’t want to be stuck with handouts.”
Murphy reminds, as anyone who understands welfare policy would know, that
The old AFDC system of welfare was eliminated in 1996, in favor of the TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] program, and is used by states to provide non-welfare services, including educational services, job training and pregnancy prevention services.
As for the idea that welfare increased the percentage of out-of-wedlock births in the Black community, research has shown “welfare benefits could not have played a major role… because benefits rose sharply in the 1960s and then fell in the 1970s and 1980s, when out-of-wedlock births rose most,” as the Brookings Institution noted. The causes are far more complex and one key factor was the devastating post-1970s decline of manufacturing jobs in the U.S.
Hovde has a bigot’s view of Black men as check-collecting layabouts, when that’s false because they’re not, and no one of any race or ethnicity could be. TANF and W2 (Wisconsin Works) — as part of TANF do not operate the way out-of-touch Hovde must think they do.
The first rule for a U.S. Senate candidate from Wisconsin (other than living here full-time) should be to understand the federal and state policies that affect this state. Hovde evidently doesn’t.
One would almost think that it’s Hovde who’s a dividend-check-collecting layabout looking for a free ride to the U.S. Senate.
