Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 76. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset is 8:30, for 15 hours, 14 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 80.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1944, Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy, commences with the execution of Operation Neptune — commonly referred to as D-Day — the largest seaborne invasion in history. Nearly 160,000 Allied troops cross the English Channel with about 5,000 landing and assault craft, 289 escort vessels, and 277 minesweepers participating. By the end of the day, the Allies have landed on five invasion beaches and are pushing inland.
Hiring decreased just slightly in May even as consumers and companies braced against tariffs and a potentially slowing economy, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
Nonfarm payrolls rose 139,000 for the month, above the muted Dow Jones estimate for 125,000 and the downwardly revised 147,000 that the U.S. economy added in April.
An unexpected observation could result a new way to treat strokes and the scientists who designed it call it the ‘milli-spinner.’ Blood clots can be extremely dangerous, potentially blocking oxygen from vital organs including the lungs and brain. One surgical treatment involves using suction to remove them from blood vessels but this isn’t always successful. Now a surprising observation of the effect of spinning on blood clots has led to the development of a new technology that could be a safer way to treat strokes and other conditions. Read the paper here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158…
Tuesday, June 10th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Green and Gold @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Drama/Family
Rated PG; 1 hour, 45 minutes (2025).
Foreclosure looms over a Wisconsin dairy farmer (Craig T. Nelson) with mounting debt and loss of the land his family has cultivated for four generations. With time running out, he places a daring Super Bowl bet on his beloved Green Bay Packers in a Hail Mary attempt to save the farm. Filmed in Door County, and at Lambeau Field. Also features Wayne Larrivee (radio voice of the Green Bay Packers) and LeRoy Butler.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny in the morning and cloudy in the afternoon, with a high of 75. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset is 8:30, for 15 hours, 13 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 72.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Public Arts Commission meets at 5 PM.
One reads that state budget talks have been called off as Gov. Tony Evers, Republican lawmakers hit impasse (‘The impasse means Republicans who run the Legislature will write the next budget themselves’):
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republicans who run the Wisconsin Legislature say they’re done negotiating over the state budget, leaving GOP lawmakers to write the document themselves.
While the impasse is hardly shocking in a state that’s lived under divided government since 2019, it followed what Evers’ office said was months of negotiations. Top Republican leaders, who have often criticized Evers for not engaging with the Legislature, all described the talks as “good faith.”
At issue were some of the big picture decisions in Wisconsin’s budget debate, namely how to use a projected $4.3 billion surplus to enact some combination of tax cuts and spending increases.
Wednesday in Whitewater will see morning showers, with partly sunny skies later in the day, and a high of 71. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset is 8:29, for 15 hours, 12 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 63.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The percentage of Wisconsin schoolchildren not receiving state-mandated vaccinations because of their parents’ personal beliefs is four times higher than it was a generation ago.
That rise in personal conviction waivers has driven a decrease in all immunizations among Wisconsin children ahead of new measles outbreaks hitting the U.S. that are linked to three deaths.
Wisconsin’s measles vaccination rate among kindergartners was the third-lowest in the nation in the 2023-24 school year, behind Idaho and Alaska. (Montana didn’t report data.)
….
Wisconsin had been a nationalleader in childhood immunizations.
But increasingly, Wisconsin parents are opting out:
For all childhood immunizations, vaccination rates statewide were lower in almost every quarter from 2020 through 2024, in comparison with the average rate in the three years before COVID-19.
Wisconsin was one of the states with the largest drops in the measles vaccination rate for kindergartners between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, and no county had an MMR vaccination rate above 85%, The Economist reported.
By a different measure, the measles vaccination rate for 2-year-olds in 2024 was as low as 44% in Vernon County and under 70% in 14 other counties.
There is a strong libertarian case for mandatory vaccinations. It’s a case that I support. See Jason Brennan, A Libertarian Case for Mandatory Vaccination, 44 J. Med. Ethics 37 (2018), https://www.jstor.org/stable/26879650. (Brennan argues that “people who refuse vaccinations violate the ‘clean hands principle’, a (in this case, enforceable) moral principle that prohibits people from participating in the collective imposition of unjust harm or risk of harm. In a libertarian framework, individuals may be forced to accept certain vaccines not because they have an enforceable duty to serve the common, and not because cost–benefit analysis recommends it, but because anti-vaxxers are wrongfully imposing undue harm upon others.”)
Saturn and Venus in the morning sky, and Mars at night. June brings the longest and shortest day of the year, depending on your hemisphere. And make your way out to dark skies to marvel at the Milky Way Galaxy’s core. 0:00 Intro 0:13 June planet viewing 1:09 Milky Way core season 1:59 June solstice 3:36 June Moon phases.
This mock-up of the Surveyor spacecraft was taken in 1966. By NASA – NASA, Public Domain, Link
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 5:18 and sunset is 8:27, for 15 hours, 9 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 44.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1966, Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on another world.
A longtime resident speaks on the SRO issue at the 5.6.25 meeting of the Whitewater Common Council:
I’m not going to get into the details of the negotiations between the two boards, but help me understand how negotiation by press release is a good idea. When the city manager put out a press release laying things out, made it very public. I don’t know why they left, but I believe that [unclear] was here to deal with this issue. I know WTMJ ran a story on it. We don’t need this. They’ll get to it. They’ll get to it.
I have some questions in your packet [concerning particulars of an SRO proposal from the city]
….
But let the boards work with each other. Let’s not make this an issue of individual personalities. We don’t need any more bad press in the community.
A few remarks:
A request. A lifelong resident, who served on the old Community Development Authority, was president of the old Community Development Authority, served on the Whitewater School Board, and was president of the Whitewater School Board, asks “help me understand“ a matter of public importance.
Easily fulfilled. These are public issues involving child safety, about public officials, at public expense. The particulars of the dispute should be known to residents in the city (pop. approx. 15,000) and the whole district (pop. approx. 22,000). These details are not about mere negotiations, but about fundamental claims that should be, and in a well-ordered community must be, public knowledge.
That’s not an issue of personality, that’s an issue of policymaking.
Bad Press. The best way to avoid bad press is to do good work, and the best way to do good work is to expand the discussion to the whole community.
The particulars of the SRO proposal mentioned on 5.6.25. As it turns out, the resident’s assessment (available in the video above) on the city’s proposed SRO contract (including ill-grasped concerns1 that expenses for an SRO were ‘like double-dipping’ ) was wrong. One meeting later, on 5.20.25, the City of Whitewater answered (refuted, truly) the resident’s concerns in a memo. See City of Whitewater, Public Comment Response from May 6, 2025 Common Council Meeting, May 9, 2025.
Familiarity. Old Whitewater — a state of mind rather than a person — has always felt that a few people in this small American town should decide without informing others of vital public issues.
It’s yesteryear’s familiar tune2, as astonishingly predictable as it is predictably astonishing3.
_____
These concerns were evidently erroneous when made on 5.6.25. Anyone with a causal knowledge of prior contractual arrangements would have seen as much. Still, a full memo refuting these concerns was helpful to the public. One can admire a good refutation. ↩︎
Increasingly rare these days, because to call for closed discussions isn’t as common in town as it once was, but then a remnant still has a lack of reflection before speaking. ↩︎
Hearing this never upsets me (although I am intellectually opposed to it): my reaction is perhaps similar to that of an ornithologist who hears once again the call of a fading species. There were years ago more people of this closed-government view in town, flocking here and there. ↩︎
Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 72. Sunrise is 5:19 and sunset is 8:27, for 15 hours, 8 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 34.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1495, a monk, John Cor, records the first known batch of Scotch whisky.
A small pterodactyl male pileated woodpecker snacks on seeds and suet:
Watch a male Pileated Woodpecker stop by the Cornell Lab FeederWatch Cam for a snack of seeds and suet. The large woodpecker starts by excavating some suet before settling in on the seed cylinder for a long foraging bout.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 70. Sunrise is 5:19 and sunset is 8:26, for 15 hours, 7 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 24.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1859, the clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, which houses Big Ben, starts keeping time.
The Palace of Westminster from across the River Thames. The Elizabeth Tower is visible on the right. By Terry Ott from Washington, DC Metro Area, United States of America – Built in 1016, CC BY 2.0, Link
Scrabble ranks among the most iconic board games of all time—right up there with Monopoly, Jumanji, Risk, and Clue. But unlike most, Scrabble demands a sharp mind. You’ll need the vocabulary of a spelling bee champion, the precision of a math whiz, and the strategy of a chess master—all while keeping a close eye on your opponents’ every move. In this video, we explore the fascinating history of Scrabble and sit down with World Champion Wellington Jighere, who shares his top tips and clever hacks for dominating the board and winning a game of Scrabble. Want to level up your game? Join us and discover plenty of Scrabble secrets, with a dose of history along the way.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:20 and sunset is 8:25, for 15 hours, 5 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 16 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1899, Pearl Hart, a female outlaw of the Old West, robs a stage coach 30 miles southeast of Globe, Arizona.
There have been legion conspiracy theories besetting some Wisconsinites over the last twenty-five years: 9/11 as an inside job, Obama’s birth certificate, claims the Clintons murdered several people, QAnon, that COVID-19 was a planned pandemic, the lab leak theory about COVID-19, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, that there is in America a ‘deep state,” and that elites are replacing whites with racial minorities. I’ve likely forgotten a few.
Last month, Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary and longtime anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the funeral for the second unvaccinated child in Texas to have died in the ongoing measles outbreak. While in Texas, he met with the two grieving families — along with two local doctors promoting unproven measles treatments, whom he called “extraordinary healers.”
Following the first death, Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the anti-vax organization Kennedy led until recently, pushed its own narrative claiming that the 6-year-old Mennonite girl did not actually die from the measles. In this effort, CHD has relied heavily on Pierre Kory, a Wisconsin doctor who has both amplified that assertion and claimed that the measles virus has been weaponized by unknown conspirators.
Kory is a Kennedy ally who has been widely criticized for spreading Covid misinformation during the pandemic, including pushing the use of ivermectin as a “miracle drug” for treating that virus.
For years, CHD and Kennedy have promoted the debunked claim that the standard measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine given to almost all children in the U.S. is tied to autism. With an upsurge in the pandemic-era, right-wing embrace of the anti-vax movement — and of Kennedy himself — there has been a notable decrease in routine pediatric vaccinations in the U.S.
Now that measles immunization rates have fallen below thresholds to maintain herd immunity in certain parts of the country, outbreaks such as the one in West Texas are expected to become more common. In February, Texas reported the country’s first measles death in a child in the more than two decades since the disease was classified as eradicated in the U.S.
In response to this death, CHD posted a video on March 19 featuring Kory and Ben Edwards, another Texas doctor Kennedy applauded, discussing the girl’s medical records, which her parents released to the organization.
Despite having no training in pediatric medicine and having had his board certifications in internal medicine and critical care revoked last year, Kory claimed the child’s death was due to incorrect antibiotic management of a bacterial pneumonia infection that had “little to do with measles.” Edwards — a family doctor who has been treating measles-stricken children in Texas with medications not indicated for measles and was accused of seeing pediatric patients while actively infected with measles himself — concurred with Kory.
The study by Tokyo University of Agriculture found cats spent significantly longer sniffing tubes containing the odours of unknown people compared to tubes containing their owner’s smell.
This suggests cats can discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar humans based on their odour, the researchers say, but that it is unclear whether they can identify specific people.
….
In the study published on Wednesday, researchers presented 30 cats with plastic tubes containing either a swab containing the odour of their owner, a swab containing the odour of a person of the same sex as their owner who they had never met, or a clean swab.
The swabs containing odours had been rubbed under the armpit, behind the ear, and between the toes of the owner or stranger.
Cats spent significantly more time sniffing the odours of unknown people compared to those of their owner or the empty tube, suggesting they can discriminate between the smells of familiar and unfamiliar people, the researchers said.
….
“The odour stimuli used in this study were only those of known and unknown persons,” said one of the study’s authors, Hidehiko Uchiyama.
“Behavioural experiments in which cats are presented with multiple known-person odour stimuli would be needed, and we would need to find specific behavioural patterns in cats that appear only in response to the owner’s odour.”
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 70. Sunrise is 5:20 and sunset is 8:24, for 15 hours, 4 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 8.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Police & Fire Commission meets at 6 PM.
Wisconsin was admitted to the Union by act of Congress on May 29, 1848. As soon as possible after the close of the second [state] constitutional convention, notice was given in Congress (Feb. 21, 1848), by the territorial representative, the Hon. John H. Tweedy, of his intention to introduce a second bill for the admission of Wisconsin into the Union (the first bill had not taken effect because the voters of Wisconsin rejected the first, 1846, draft constitution).
March 13, 1848, the people of the territory voted on the new constitution, and it was approved by a vote of 16,799 to 6,384. On March 16, President Polk in a special message submitted to Congress the Wisconsin constitution with accompanying documents. On March 20, Mr. Tweedy introduced his bill, which on April 13 was favorably reported from the committee on territories, read first and second times and referred to the committee of the whole. It was made a special order for May 9, and on the 11th was engrossed, read a third time and passed. The Senate at once took action, and a week later, May 19, the bill was concurred in and ten days later, May 29, was approved by the president.
Volatile lumber prices are once again rattling the U.S. housing market, squeezing builders and threatening to exacerbate an already dire affordability crisis. Though lumber avoided inclusion in the latest round of tariffs, the Trump administration has signaled growing interest in tightening trade restrictions, which could also increase lumber prices.
A huge section of a glacier in the Swiss Alps has broken off, causing a deluge of ice, mud and rock to bury most of a village evacuated earlier this month due to the risk of a rockslide.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be rainy and cloudy with a high of 62. Sunrise is 5:21 and sunset is 8:23, for 15 hours, 03 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 3.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 585 BC, a solar eclipse occurs, as predicted by the Greek philosopher and scientist Thales, while Alyattes is battling Cyaxares in the Battle of the Eclipse, leading to a truce. This is one of the cardinal dates from which other dates can be calculated. It is also the earliest event of which the precise date is known.
More than 100 citizens from an array of grassroots groups packed the Wisconsin state Senate parlor and marched on Gov. Tony Evers’ office Tuesday, their chants bouncing off the marble walls inside the Capitol. They were there to deliver a letter — which they urged others to sign online — demanding that Evers veto the state budget if it doesn’t include key elements of the governor’s own budget proposal.
“The whole Democratic grassroots is now demanding that national leaders stand and fight,” said Robert Kraig, executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin, who helped organize the effort, “and I think that spirit is now being translated down to the state level.”
Public school advocates, child care providers, teachers’ unions and advocates for criminal justice reform and health care access came to demand that Evers take a stronger stand and threaten to use his significant veto power in negotiations with Republicans.
I’m not a Democrat, yet I understand Democrats’ justified frustration. Indeed, this libertarian blogger has encouraged collective protest. SeeGo Outside.
Gov. Tony Evers, however, is governor of Wisconsin, not Illinois; his political position is different from the one that J.B. Pritzker (admirably) has taken. (Without question, Pritzker’s expressed views on Trump are similar to millions of Americans, my own among them.)
Someone would do well, however, to remind activists that there is more than one path to success. Ever is a twice-elected governor, and he is almost certain to run again. Although mild-mannered, Evers has a record of political success in this state, and a strong chance of success should he run for a third term in 2026.
Tony Evers’s re-election is vital to Wisconsin’s political health. Other Democrats running in legislative races next year can take a more assertive stance. Evers needn’t — and shouldn’t — change his approach. That approach is, and will continue to be, a winning one.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 69. Sunrise is 5:21 and sunset is 8:23, for 15 hours, 02 minutes of daytime. The moon is new with 0.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM. The Whitewater Unified School District’s Policy Review Committee meets at 6:40 PM. The Whitewater School Board then meets in open session at 7 PM, to enter closed session and return to open session later in the evening.
On this day in 1937, in California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California.
Q: If Gov. Evers declines to run for a third term, who are the likely Democratic front-runners?
Molly: Here are the Democrats I hear floated when this question comes up: Attorney General Josh Kaul, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski, and soon-to-be-former Democratic Party of Wisconsin chairman Ben Wikler.
Evers running again is as close to a certainty as there is.
Q: Is U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson running again in 2028?
Molly: Johnson is now in his third term (one term longer than he initially promised to stay in D.C.) and is now 70. Whether he seeks a fourth term is a good question, and I don’t think we’ll have an answer until closer to 2027.
Dan: Remember when Johnson was just a “citizen legislator,” emphasizing the fact that he was a businessman and political outsider? Things have changed. Johnson sold his business and is now a D.C. insider. Washington will do that to you. But is he ready to give up his podcast interviews and Fox News airtime for a quiet retirement in Oshkosh? Who will listen to his conspiracy theories then?
Johnson is a crackpot and a liar (he broke his pledge not to run for a third term). There’s no predicting his actions except to know that he’s a crackpot and a liar. (And holy cow, if Johnson retires, it won’t be to Oshkosh: Johnson travels along a Washington, D.C. to Florida axis.)
Q: Scott Walker is on TV a LOT. Is he running for office again?
Dan: Here’s what you need to know — his poll numbers are not good from what I hear, and he’s making more money than he ever has. In 2023, he pulled in $840,521 as president of the Young America’s Foundation, according to its financial filings. (So much for his brown bag lunches.) It’s also a job without a downside. If the number of conservative youngsters increases, then great. But if it doesn’t, what did you expect? He can blame the liberals for running the universities, the entertainment industry and the media.
So the answer is no, not anytime soon. He’s too busy counting his cash and his media appearances.
Well, that’s right: Walker isn’t running, and would lose any major race if he did run. The WISGOP isn’t Walker’s party anymore; it’s Trump’s. It’s also well-known, not scuttlebutt, what Walker makes at YAF. (There’s no ‘from what I hear’ inside knowledge required.)
Video from the U.S. Geological Survey showed Kilauea volcano spewing lava more than 800 feet into the air in its latest eruption on Hawaii’s Big Island.
