Independence Day in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:22 and sunset 8:36 for 15h 13m 20s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 2.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
This day in 1836, the Wisconsin Territory is formed: In Mineral Point, Col. Henry Dodge took the oath of office to become the first Governor of the newly created Territory of Wisconsin. The Territory, previously attached to Michigan, encompassed what is now the states of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and portions of North and South Dakota.
Whitewater’s Independence Holiday celebration continues today at the Cravath Lakefront:
Christman Family Amusements: No wristband sessions on 4th of July Whippet City Mile: 9:45 AM along parade route 4th of July Parade: 10 AM Civic Organization Food Vendors: 10 AM to 11 PM Live Music at Frawley Amphitheater: Polka 2 PM Sam Rodewald 5 PM to 7 PM U2 Hype 8 PM to post fireworks Fireworks: 10 PM
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:22 and sunset 8:36 for 15h 14m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 6.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
July 3, 1863, is famous for Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, when 12,500 Confederate soldiers attacked the Union line. When Union generals were carried from the field wounded, their troops faltered and their line began to break. Lieutenant Frank Haskell of Madison rode into their midst, rallied them back to the fight, and then brought reinforcements that stopped the enemy attack. Iron Brigade General John Gibbon commented afterward, “I have always thought that to him, more than to any one man, are we indebted for the repulse of Lee’s assault.” It turned not only the tide of the battle but, through the Confederate defeat, the momentum of the war.
Whitewater’s Independence Holiday celebration — a signature event in our small & beautiful city, as in many American towns — begins this evening at the Cravath Lakefront:
Christman Family Amusements Wristband Session: 5-9 PM, $25 each wristband Miss Whitewater Pageant at Frawley Ampitheater: 5 PM Civic Organization Food Vendors: 5 to 11 PM Karaoke at Frawley Ampitheater: 8 to 10 PM
On 6.27.24, this libertarian blogger remarked on the leak of a Wisconsin Supreme Court draft scheduling order about an abortion-related case. The leak was one of a few leaks of federal and state judicial proceedings on abortion cases. SeeA Judicial Leak Strikes Wisconsin (as It Has Elsewhere).
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that it would hear two cases filed by Attorney General Josh Kaul and Planned Parenthood that will determine if Wisconsinites have a right to abortion care.
The cases, accepted concurrently, ask if the state’s 1849 law widely seen as banning abortion actually does so and if abortion is a right protected by the state Constitution.
Additionally, the Court ruled that it would not allow the state’s three largest anti-abortion groups to intervene in the lawsuits, finding that just having an interest in a hotly debated issue is not enough to clear the legal bar of joining a lawsuit as a non-party. The groups, Wisconsin Right to Life, Wisconsin Family Action, and Pro-Life Wisconsin, will be allowed to file amicus briefs.
“Merely propounding a general position on a topic of debate in society, lobbying for that position, or wishing to make legal arguments consistent with that position does not give them a legal claim or defense that is sufficient to support permissive intervention,” the Court’s order states. “Moreover, if we were to permit intervention by the Proposed Intervenors, there would be no logical distinction that would preclude intervention by all of the many other lobbying and education organizations on both sides of the abortion debate.”
Conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn concurred with the decision to not allow the groups to intervene.
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.
Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 74. Sunrise is 5:21 and sunset 8:36 for 15h 15m 55s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 21.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Police and Fire Commission meets at 6 PM.
The reintroduction of wolves has only had temporary effects on other small carnivores at Isle Royale National Park on Lake Superior, according to new research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The park is the site of the longest predator-prey study on record between wolves and moose. Over the years, the wolf population has fluctuated there, but the species almost went extinct in the last decade after only two inbred wolves remained. Those wolves couldn’t reproduce to control the moose population.
In the fall of 2018, federal authorities began to introduce 19 wolves to Isle Royale. UW-Madison researchers led a study that took a before-and-after look at how wolves affected small carnivores there, such as red foxes and American martens.
….
Jonathan Pauli, a forest and wildlife ecology professor at UW-Madison, said the research highlights the competitive interactions between the species.
“In the absence of wolves, foxes have free range of the island and that’s to the detriment of martens,” Pauli said. “But when wolves return, at least at first, they then enforce these really important costs on foxes, which benefits martens. But, eventually, it all kind of settles down.”
Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 71. Sunrise is 5:20 and sunset 8:37 for 15h 16m 39s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 31.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1864, Pres. Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for “public use, resort and recreation.”
The sighting of a crested caracara near Ashland drew carloads of viewers and rave reviews from birders in extremely rare appearance of the species. https://t.co/nA2EG1noBe
Birders from Milwaukee, Madison, Green Lake and Appleton were among the crowd that showed up over the first 24 hours of the sighting.
For nearly all, it was the first time they experienced the species in the Badger State.
The crested caracara looks like a hawk with a sharp beak and talons but behaves like a vulture and is officially in the falcon family. To add to is aura, its nickname is the “Mexican eagle.”
Its typical range is from southern South America, through the Caribbean and Mexico and just into the southern U.S., primarily in Texas.
The bird is “instantly recognizable standing tall on long, yellow-orange legs with a sharp black cap set against a white neck and yellow-orange face,” according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
That’s easy for Cornell to say. When it’s 2,000 miles out of place and been seen in Wisconsin only once before, it can take most state residents, even avid birders, more than a minute to identify.
The crested caracara prefers open country, flies low on flat wings, routinely walks on the ground and is not shy or reclusive, according to its Cornell description.
The species frequently perches on the tallest tree or structure around and is distinguished from vultures because it flies with flat wings (vultures have vee-shaped wings in flight).
In its native range, it is often seen beside vultures feeding on animal carcasses.
Wisconsin presents surprises for those who’ll look.
Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 85. Sunrise is 5:19 and sunset 8:37 for 15h 17m 19s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 42.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1613, the Globe Theatre in London, built by William Shakespeare’s playing company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, burns to the ground.
Friday in Whitewater will see clouds and scattered showers with a high of 75. Sunrise is 5:19 and sunset 8:37 for 15h 17m 55s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 54 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1832, General Henry Atkinson and the Second Army begin their trip into the Wisconsin wilderness in a major effort against Black Hawk. The “Army of the Frontier” was formed of 400 U.S. Army Regulars and 2,100 volunteer militiamen to participate in the Black Hawk War. The troops were headed toward the Lake Koshkonong area where the main camp of the British Band was rumored to be located.
For the second time this year, the Wisconsin Elections Commission has ruled conservative activists failed to gather enough valid signatures to recall Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos from office, this time finding that some of the signatures were collected after the legal deadline.
In a 4-2 vote, the commission found that 188 signatures were collected by the Racine Recall Committee outside of a 60-day window in state law. That’s despite a recommendation by commission attorneys two days earlier saying recall organizers had collected enough signatures to force an election.
At issue were around 188 signatures collected on May 27, which was Memorial Day, and May 28. Because organizers gathered only 16 signatures more than required, subtracting 188 from that total sunk the petition.
Before the vote, Commissioner Mark Thomsen, a Democratic appointee, urged his colleagues to vote against Millis’ motion “that saves his guy,” insinuating that Millis was protecting Vos. Thomsen noted that some members of the recall effort “probably want to put us in prison” because of past decisions, but he said the Wisconsin Constitution gives them the right to recall officeholders.
“Personally, I think the recall is a waste of time, waste of money,” Thomsen said. “But there is a constitutional right for these folks and for us to say we are going to throw the sufficiency out now on this technical rule is going to be a farce.”
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.
Wednesday in Whitewater will become partly sunny in the afternoon with a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:18 and sunset 8:37 for 15h 18m 56s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 75.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1974, the Universal Product Code is scanned at a retail store for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley’s chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio.
Perhaps there will be a recall against Speaker Robin Vos after all. Rich Kremer reports WEC staff: Vos recall organizers submitted enough signatures, but legal question remains (“Because Wisconsin Supreme Court declared old legislative districts unconstitutional, whether Vos can be recalled in his old district ‘remains an unresolved legal question’ “)
Recall organizer Matthew Snorek said he submitted more than 9,000 signatures to the WEC on May 28. After an initial review, WEC staff determined that organizers turned in 6,866 valid signatures from residents in Vos’ old 63rd Assembly District.
In order to trigger a recall election organizers needed 6,850 signatures, which equates to 25 percent of the number of people who voted in that district during the last election for governor. According to the WEC staff memo, they cleared that mark by just 16 signatures.
But whether Vos can even be recalled from the 63rd Assembly District “remains an unresolved legal question” according to the WEC staff memo. That’s because the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority declared in December that maps drawn by Republicans in 2022 were unconstitutional, ruling that no future elections could be held using those districts. That includes Vos’ old 63rd Assembly District.
While the Wisconsin Elections Commission may see this as an ‘unresolved legal question,’ the Wisconsin Supreme Court does not. The WEC has a decision to make. They can turn to past Wisconsin Supreme Court orders (Clarke v. WEC, 2023 WI 79; No. 2023AP1399-OA Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission), but it is the WEC that will have to decide.
Speaker Vos has incited opposition from all quarters. In his political maneuvering, Vos is like a man who, over many years, carelessly scattered banana peels on the floor, only to find that he’s now unsure which way safely to turn.
Severe flooding caused by heavy rainfall inundated streets and infrastructure in central China’s Hunan province on Monday (June 24), eyewitness footage shared on social media showed. Reuters was able to confirm the location and the date of the footage.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny in the afternoon with a high of 89. Sunrise is 5:18 and sunset 8:37 for 15h 19m 21s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 84.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1950, the Korean War begins when North Korea invades South Korea.
In 2017, then-President Trump and Wisconsin’s governor at the time, Scott Walker, announced that Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn had chosen Wisconsin for a huge manufacturing and technology complex, designing and building giant video displays.
The company promised to spend $10 billion and hire 13,000 new employees for a new campus in Mount Pleasant, about 30 miles south of Milwaukee. At a groundbreaking the following year, Trump said the new facility would be “the eighth wonder of the world.”
Wisconsin pledged more than $3 billion in state and local subsidies — by far the biggest such deal in the state’s history — and Walker proclaimed that the region would henceforth be known as “Wisconn Valley.” But it soon became clear that most of that was hype.
Within months, Foxconn began scaling back its plans, citing labor costs. As the company missed hiring target after hiring target, Walker, a Republican, lost his reelection bid in 2018 to Democrat Tony Evers. Evers’ administration renegotiated the Foxconn incentive package, but not before the state and local governments spent hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure improvements and land acquisition, displacing more than 100 homes in the process.
There are some glimmers of hope in Mount Pleasant. In May, Microsoftannounced it was increasing its investment in Mount Pleasant. The company announced last year it would spend $1 billion to build a data center on land that had been set aside for Foxconn. Now, the company said it would more than triple that investment to $3.3 billion, and that the data center would focus on artificial intelligence, adding more than 2,000 permanent jobs.
Racine County Board Chairman Tom Kramer, who came into office after the Foxconn deal was signed but dealt with much of the fallout, said the Microsoft deal proves that all the spending on infrastructure was not such a bad idea after all, even though the site was built for a massive factory but will get a much smaller data center instead.
[Mount Pleasant resident Kelly] Gallaher bristles when people suggest that all’s well that ends well in Mount Pleasant.
“We’ve watched our village go through a few years of desperation,” she said. “One of the worst aspects is the cynicism that it has caused among people.”
She said that cynicism extends to both Microsoft and the Tech Hub.
“The idea that we’re going to put our faith in our future in one company, I think should make every community pause,” she said.
Gallaher’s response is what reasonable people can and should expect after past policymakers talked big but delivered small, when they fumbled through project after project, and bemoaned any critique of their development failures.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset 8:37 for 15h 19m 42s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 92.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 5:15 PM, and returns to open session at 7 PM.
On this day in 1948, the Berlin Blockade begins as the Soviet Union makes overland travel between West Germany and West Berlin impossible.
It wouldn’t occur to a sensible person to remove large numbers of periodic cicadas from a Wisconsin state park, thereby interrupting their natural lifecycle. The report seems too odd to be accurate, and yet, these are odd times. On Sunday, the Wisconsin DNR issued a press release warning against cicada harvesting:
MADISON, Wis. – Following multiple reports of people harvesting cicadas at Big Foot Beach State Park in Walworth County, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) reminds the public that state law prohibits the capture and removal of animals, including insects, from state park properties.
There are exceptions for hunting and fishing activities that are otherwise authorized by law, but these exceptions do not provide for the collection and removal of cicadas.
DNR park staff and wardens have been instructed to make efforts to first educate the public on cicadas in state parks, and wardens may take enforcement action in response to violations.
If you are aware of cicada harvesting happening at any other state park locations in Wisconsin, please report it to the DNR’s Violation Hotline online or by calling or texting 1-800-847-9367.
Please note that no further information is available and we are not accepting interview requests on this topic at this time.
Honest to goodness, anyone so implicated is ignorantly destructive.
