Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 57. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:39 for 9 hours 14 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 60.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 2007, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces the original iPhone at a Macworld keynote in San Francisco.
Wisconsin Life | Nature trail weaves Indigenous knowledge with Western science:
Click image to play video.
Click image to play video.
Tuesday, January 13th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Period Drama Rated PG
2 hours, 3 minutes (2025)
Is this really the final chapter in the favorite 14 year family saga…? Starring Hugh Bonneville and the entire Downton Cast.
One can find more information about Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale at the Internet Movie Database.
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 55. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:38 for 9 hours 13 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 69.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1790, President Washington delivers the first State of the Union address in New York City.
There is a story today at the Journal Sentinel, framed with the tired formulation that two people are ‘pointing fingers’ at each other about past election actions from two of Wisconsin’s gubernatorial candidates:
“Barnes, who leads the Democratic primary for governor in name identification, criticized Tiffany, a Republican leading the GOP primary race, on the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection for his support of a lawsuit that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“… let’s remind WI that you are an election-denier that tried to overturn the 2020 election at the bidding of Donald Trump,” Barnes said in a post on X.
Tiffany shot back, reminding X followers of a past post from Barnes following President Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory that questioned its legitimacy.
“The election was, rigged?” Barnes tweeted on Nov. 9, 2016 ? a day after Trump defeated former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by winning key swing states, including Wisconsin.”
See Molly Beck, Barnes, Tiffany point fingers over questioning of election results, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 8, 2026.
This libertarian blogger is skeptical of neither election result (Trump won in ’16, Biden won in ’20). And yet, and yet, for any person of normal discernment, it’s easy to see that Barnes’s unfounded skepticism in 2016 was little more than a social media claim, while in 2021 Rep. Tiffany in Congress actively voted on 1.6.21 to overturn Biden’s victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
In her story, Beck reminds readers of Tiffany’s actions only ten paragraphs down.
Tiffany did more than ‘point fingers’ in 2021. He acted affirmatively to reject a lawful election result to support a losing presidential campaign.
That plain truth deserves more than a tenth-paragraph observation.
NASA mulls rare ISS crew return over astronaut health issue:
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 41. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:37 for 9 hours 12 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 78.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1927, the first transatlantic commercial telephone service is established from New York City to London.
What makes a good local candidate, in the fullest meaning of the word good?
I’d suggest the precepts of a venerable, ancient religion: good thoughts, good words, good deeds.
Expressed more fully, and described in secular political terms: good ideas, good communication, and good results.
I’d add one more: the candidate is his or her own person, free from a role as operative or tool of special interest machinations and manipulations. See The Special-Interest Hierarchy of a Small Town.
Parisians ski and sled down a snowy Montmartre slope:
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 38. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:36 for 9 hours 11 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 86.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 2021, supporters of Donald Trump storm the United States Capitol Building to disrupt the lawful certification of the 2020 presidential election, resulting in four deaths and evacuation of the U.S. Congress.
This libertarian blogger has been a critic of conventional political paradigms to describe America’s national or state politics in these unconventional times.1 Trumpism is not a conventional political movement. It’s an authoritarian populist2 one, no matter how loudly or how insistently the some Trump supporters resist that description. (It’s worth noting that Trump influencers have begun to embrace that plain truth, even if some ordinary Trump voters still blanch at the description.)
Much of this criticism has centered on the conventional political analysis of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s Craig Gilbert. (Gilbert’s views would have been insightful in a former era; ours isn’t that former era.) Gilbert’s latest assessment, of how Trump’s popularity may influence statewide races, comes closer to describing our time candidly:
Wisconsin exemplifies a powerful pattern in modern American politics.
The party that wins the presidency does a lot of losing in the elections that follow. Some scholars call it the “presidential penalty.”
When Republican George W. Bush was president (2001-2009), Democrats won both races for governor in Wisconsin.
When Democrat Barack Obama was president (2009-2017), Republicans won three elections for governor and their first U.S. Senate races since the 1980s.
[…]Here in battleground Wisconsin, we may be seeing a “presidential penalty” not just in fall partisan races, but in Wisconsin’s most important nonpartisan elections, the April contests for state Supreme Court. Nothing like it has happened in the modern era. This is a new political phenomenon.
[…]There are at least two other factors that help explain why the Trump presidency has not only influenced the outcome of court races but had a negative impact on Trump’s own party.
One is that Trump has been an unusually confrontational and polarizing president, utterly dominating the political arena and the public’s attention. You would expect such a president to have more impact on elections for other offices.
See Craig Gilbert, Under Trump, a ‘presidential penalty’ extends to court races, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 5, 2026.
Closer, right? Gilbert describes Trump as “an unusually confrontational and polarizing president.” Yes, indeed. There’s more though. Trump is “unusually” confrontational and polarizing because he’s an authoritarian populist to his bones.
An analysis of Trump’s influence can only be accurate if Trump is described and understood accurately.
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Watch a superkilonova explode twice in an animation:
Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 40. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:35 for 9 hours 10 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 93.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1972, President Nixon announces the Space Shuttle program.
Why do local officials violate the law? There are three main reasons.
First, they are wholly ignorant of the law. Second, they misunderstand the law. Third, they have an interest they place above the law.
The first is corrected easily, the second with more difficulty, and the third only with great effort. That great effort will not rest on community sentiment; officials who have placed an interest above the law will not yield to community persuasion as they’ve already rejected opinions other than their own (or, more precisely, rejected opinions beyond the faction that they view as patrons and protectors).
Click image to play video.
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 30. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:34 for 9 hours 9 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1944, Operation Carpetbagger, involving the dropping of arms and supplies to resistance fighters in Europe, begins.
PBS Wisconsin interviewed Assembly Speaker Vos and Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer. Below are recordings of each interview.
Vos:
An overall impression of delivery — Vos speaks as an older man recalling his talking points; Neubauer speaks as a younger woman conversing with others across a café table. He’s stiff and tedious to watch; by contrast, she’s natural and conversational.
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 24. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:33 for 9 hours 8 minutes of daytime. The moon is full today. It’s the January Wolf Supermoon.
On this day in 1777, American forces under General Washington defeat British forces at the Battle of Princeton, helping boost Patriot morale.
It’s a full moon today, and the moon will be large for the next few days. (While it’s cloudy now, it may yet be clear later in the evening.) So, so… what’s all the talk about (1) a full moon, (2) full moons with different names for different months, and full moons that are also called (3) supermoons?
It’s a simple three-step process to determine if a moon is a supermoon. Cultures for thousands of years have been noting when the moon is full, and which full moons are larger in appearance than others. There’s nothing difficult about it.
Here’s a quick primer:
The full moon. A full moon is easy to describe — it occurs when all of the moon’s visible disk is illuminated. That happens a bit more than every 29 days, and takes place when the moon and the sun are on opposite sides of the Earth, a position called opposition:
Monthly names for the full moon each month. The names are applied to a full moon in a given month aren’t the creation of astronomers, but are simply traditional cultural descriptions people apply to a moon in a particular month. (Different cultures have different names.)
Here’s one list of those names, by month:
| Month | Moon Name |
| January | Wolf Moon |
| February | Snow Moon |
| March | Worm Moon |
| April | Pink Moon |
| May | Flower Moon |
| June | Strawberry Moon |
| July | Buck Moon |
| August | Sturgeon Moon |
| September or October | Harvest Moon1 |
| September | Corn Moon |
| October | Hunter’s Moon |
| November | Beaver Moon |
| December | Cold Moon |
Supermoons. When the full moon is closer than normal to Earth, a position called perigee, then it’s called a supermoon. Supermoons are simply full moons that are closer than average to Earth. Any month’s moon could be a supermoon, depending on whether that moon is closer to the Earth (perigee) than on average in that month and year.
This January, the Wolf Moon is closer to Earth than average, so it’s a Wolf Supermoon.
See Marta Hill, The Year’s First Bright Supermoon and the Colorful Quadrantid Meteor Shower Coincide This Weekend, Smithsonian Magazine, January 2, 2026.
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See also What Makes a Supermoon Super? (Animation):
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 22. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:32 for 9 hours 7 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1942, thirty-three members of the Nazi Duquesne Spy Ring, headed by Fritz Joubert Duquesne, are sentenced in federal court, in the largest espionage case in United States history.
Many years ago, and for many years, a January post at FREE WHITEWATER would offer predictions for the year ahead. They were styled in the fashion of the late William Safire’s predictions at the New York Times. These turbulent recent years have made predictions too audacious to attempt for this blogger (and I think for Safire, too, if he were to see these times).
Instead, rather than specific predictions, one can confidently offer a list of the general forces that are likely to be influential in Whitewater. In this respect, those social forces are roughly the same as those present in the last few years. See What Ails, What Heals (11.14.22) and ‘What Ails, What Heals’ and What’s Changed (10.2.25). While the change over the last three years has been in favor of what heals in this city, those who would drag Whitewater back, by hook or by crook, are relentless and insatiable.
A few remarks follow, however, about the people and factions that comprise the negative and positive elements at work in Whitewater.
Arguments and counter-arguments. Old Whitewater, a culture that praised a few and scorned all others, did not encourage debate among those few, or anyone else. While there were arguments in favor of this project or that, no one was expected to do more than join a chorus of praise for these ideas.
And so, and so, those who came up in Old Whitewater, like the special interest men of this town, had no experience responding to counter-arguments. These men weren’t less intelligent than others, but they were less capable of forming and following a debate with sound reasoning. They are now men in their sixties and seventies whose quality of reasoning was less necessary to them than mere social pressure (‘SHUT UP AND SING OUR TUNE‘). Live your life that way, and your actual argumentation is weak, comprising little more than bad statistics, bad faith claims, and a barrel of fallacies suitable for any discussion.
Residents. Worth repeating in the year ahead:
My remarks concern policies of and within the City of Whitewater, where I am a resident and property owner: residing here in the city, not across the town line; owning a home here in the city, not elsewhere; voting as part of this city’s electorate, not with a different one; loving this small and beautiful community, above any other. Here now forever, happily and thankfully so.
One hopes more people would move to Whitewater. Critics (and supporters) within the city carry more credibility than those who live elsewhere.
The work of a lifetime. If the boosters were bad for this city (and they were), if toxic positivity is bad for this city (and it is), and if the special interest men are advocates of their own interests over the majority (and they are), then there is still work ahead in this city.
January 2026 Skywatching Tips from NASA:
Good morning.
New Year’s Day in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 17. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:31 for 9 hours 6 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 95.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation takes effect in Confederate territory.
New Year 2026 fireworks in Dubai, Paris, London, and around the globe:
A coyote patrols Central Park:
Click image to play video.
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 34. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:30 for 9 hours 5 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 88.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1907, the first ball drop takes place in Times Square:
The event was first organized by Adolph Ochs, owner of The New York Times, as an extension to a series of New Year’s Eve fireworks displays he held at the building to promote its status as the new headquarters of the Times, while the ball itself was designed by Artkraft Strauss. First held on December 31, 1907, to welcome 1908, the ball drop has been held annually since, except in 1942 and 1943 in observance of wartime blackouts.
In Paris, a daring daytime robbery at the Louvre captured worldwide attention this fall. It was the second-most daring robbery of the year.1 The New York Times describes how that caper unfolded:
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Learning the truth about Albert Einstein:
Click image to play video.
