Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 56. Sunrise is 6:50, and sunset is 4:29, for 9 hours, 39 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 95.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1820, Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica. (The Palmer Peninsula is later named after him.)
Dark Horse Loft near New Richmond is home to a unique mother and son pigeon racing team who compete against each other in an unusual sport hundreds of years old.
Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 51. Sunrise is 6:48, and sunset is 4:30, for 9 hours, 41 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1821, Missouri trader William Becknell arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail.
Dave Eck’s passion for vinyl began at Madison record stores as a teenager. That early love of music led to a career mastering records for major artists. Now he’s brought vinyl manufacturing back to Wisconsin, opening Waxxy Poodle in Cross Plains — the state’s first record pressing facility in nearly 100 years, producing thousands of records daily.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 54. Sunrise is 6:47, and sunset is 4:31, for 9 hours, 44 minutes of daytime. The moon is full with 99.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
While Eric Hovde lost the race for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin (see below), he’s doing better with conspiracy theorists on X:
Social media posts about election fraud in Wisconsin have surged since Election Day, surpassing all other battleground states, according to data collected by PeakMetrics, a software analytics company.
Between Nov. 6 and Nov. 12, the number of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, mentioning election fraud in Wisconsin surged from 2,570 to 22,589 — an approximately 789% increase, according to the report. There has been no evidence to suggest voter fraud is a common issue in Wisconsin.
Hovde’s claims about his loss to Tammy Baldwin are easily debunked, as Ricardo Torres writes at the Journal Sentinel:
Hovde went on to say that at 4 a.m. Milwaukee updated its count to include roughly 108,000 absentee ballots and that Baldwin won “nearly 90% of those ballots.”
“Statistically, this outcome seems improbable,” Hovde said. “As it didn’t match the pattern from same day voting in Milwaukee, where I received 22% of the vote.”
….
Absentee ballots are just a portion of the total votes in any election. But since Hovde is focused on absentee ballots, it’s fairly easy to see his claim is incorrect by going to the city of Milwaukee’s election results page. It should be noted that some absentee voters chose third party candidates for U.S. senate or skipped that race.
Milwaukee received 108,964 absentee ballots by Nov. 5, according to the unofficial count.
Of that group, Baldwin received 88,229 and Hovde received 17,699 absentee ballots.
So Baldwin got about 80.9% of the absentee vote and Hovde got about 16.2% of it.
Clearly Baldwin did not get “nearly 90%” of the absentee ballot vote.
Baldwin’s absentee ballot vote in Milwaukee was similar by proportion to her Election Day in-person vote in Milwaukee. Torres continues:
On Election Day itself, there were 140,043 votes cast in Milwaukee, according to the unofficial count. Of that number Baldwin received 102,598 and Hovde received 29,574.
So Baldwin pulled down 73.2% of the vote on Election Day compared to Hovde’s 21.1% of that vote.
The wide disparities that Hovde claims are false: Baldwin did somewhat better with absentee ballots, but there was no statistically improbable result as Hovde claims.
Drone views show the medieval castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg, as if it were floating in clouds on a foggy day. Built in the 12th century by a Germanic imperial family, the castle was a mountain fortress which was later besieged and pillaged.
Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:46, and sunset is 4:33, for 9 hours, 46 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous, with 97.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Involvement & Cable TV Committee meets at 5 PM.
On this day in 1851, Moby-Dick is published in the United States.
We awake to news of imperfect justice, as Oliver Darcy reports Not Satire: The Onion acquires Infowars (‘As part of the deal, The Onion will own Infowars’ website, product inventory, customers lists, social media accounts, and intellectual property’):
The Onion has successfully acquired Infowars.
The satirical news outlet purchased Alex Jones‘ right-wing conspiracy empire at a court-ordered auction, the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting announced Thursday.
“The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,” said Robbie Parker, whose daughter was killed in the 2012 school shooting.
As part of the deal, The Onion, owned by Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson and led by chief executive Ben Collins, acquired Infowars’ website, product inventory, customers lists, social media accounts, and intellectual property.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. But the Sandy Hook families increased the size of The Onion’s bid by agreeing to forgo a portion of the money Jones owes them.
“From day one, these families have fought against all odds to bring true accountability to Alex Jones and his corrupt business,” Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Connecticut families, said in a statement. “Our clients knew that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones’ ability to spread lies, pain and fear at scale.”
Every so often, a notorious liar, a peddler of conspiracy theories large and small, meets a fitting fate. This is one such occasion: that the brand he built and wielded against grieving families is now the property of a satirical publication.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with evening showers and a high of 54. Sunrise is 6:45, and sunset is 4:33, for 9 hours, 48 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous, with 92.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4:30 PM.
Although it has been suggested the Leonid meteor shower and storms have been noted in ancient times, it was the meteor storm of November 12–13, 1833 that broke into people’s modern-day awareness. One estimate of the peak rate is over one hundred thousand meteors an hour, while another, done as the storm abated, estimated in excess of 240,000 meteors during the nine hours of the storm, over the entire region of North America east of the Rocky Mountains.
It’s been over a week, in a state where margins of electoral victory survive scrutiny (despite conspiracy theories and speculation), and yet losing candidate Eric Hovde admits he lost, but won’t concede. In this, Hovde is true to form, confirming what critics (as I am) saw about him. Wisconsin Public Radio describes Hovde’s stance accurately:
Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 49. Sunrise is 6:43, and sunset is 4:34, for 9 hours, 50 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous, with 85.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 5 PM, and the Public Art Committee meets at 5:30 PM.
A conservative prosecutor’s attorney struggled Monday to persuade the Wisconsin Supreme Court to reactivate the state’s 175-year-old abortion ban, drawing a tongue-lashing from two of the court’s liberal justices during oral arguments.
Sheboygan County’s Republican district attorney, Joel Urmanski, has asked the high court to overturn a Dane County judge’s ruling last year that invalidated the ban. A ruling isn’t expected for weeks but abortion advocates almost certainly will win the case given that liberal justices control the court. One of them, Janet Protasiewicz, remarked on the campaign trail that she supports abortion rights.
….
The ban stood until 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide nullified it. Legislators never repealed the ban, however, and conservatives have argued the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe two years ago reactivated it.
Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit challenging the law in 2022. He argued that a 1985 Wisconsin law that prohibits abortion after a fetus reaches the point where it can survive outside the womb supersedes the ban. Some babies can survive with medical help after 21 weeks of gestation.
Urmanski contends that the ban was never repealed and that it can co-exist with the 1985 law because that law didn’t legalize abortion at any point. Other modern-day abortion restrictions also don’t legalize the practice, he argues.
Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper ruled last year that the ban outlaws feticide — which she defined as the killing of a fetus without the mother’s consent — but not consensual abortions. The ruling emboldened Planned Parenthood to resume offering abortions in Wisconsin after halting procedures after Roe was overturned.
Urmanski asked the state Supreme Court in February to overturn Schlipper’s ruling without waiting for a lower appellate decision.
As noted in yesterday’s post there is, however, a constitutional Supremacy Clause that, if relied upon following federal restrictions, would make state action moot.
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.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy, with scattered morning showers, and a high of 58. Sunrise is 6:41, and sunset is 4:36, for 9 hours, 57 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous, with 65.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
When a dog shakes water off its fur, it is not just a random flurry of movements — nor a deliberate effort to drench anyone standing nearby.
This instinctive reflex is shared by many furry mammals including mice, cats, squirrels, lions, tigers and bears. The move helps animals to remove water, insects or other irritants from hard-to-reach places. But underlying the shakes is a complex — and previously mysterious — neurological mechanism.
Now, researchers have identified the neural circuit that triggers characteristic ‘wet dog’ shaking behaviour in mice — which involves a specific class of touch receptors, and neurons that connect the spinal cord to the brain.
Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 58. Sunrise is 6:40, and sunset is 4:37, for 9 hours, 57 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous, with 54.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1938, Kristallnacht occurs, instigated by the Nazis using the killing of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpanas as a sham justification.
Food lover Mark Gevaux known as ‘The Rib Man’ and London’s ‘Godfather of Street Food’ became a butcher at 12. After losing his leg in a car accident he had to find a new way to follow his dream, which led him to become the go-to for making the BEST pulled BBQ ribs for football matches. Foodies, what’s your go-to sauce for the perfect pulled ribs? 00:00 Intro 00:26 Who is the rib man? 1:26 Firing up the BBQ 3:19 The fatal accident 4:03 A new beginning with pulled ribs 4:37 Taste the sauces 5:33 Let’s check on the ribs! 6:39 Taste test! 7:30 Serving up tasty ribs
Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 56. Sunrise is 6:38, and sunset is 4:38, for 9 hours, 59 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 43.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1972, American pay television network Home Box Office (HBO) launches.
Emily Warren Roebling was a groundbreaking engineer who took over construction of the Brooklyn Bridge after her husband, who had been leading construction, and son died of decompression sickness. On 24 May 1883, Roebling became the first human to cross the bridge during its opening ceremony. But the first creature to cross the bridge did so about a month earlier, when a cat named Ned claimed the honor.
According to a New York Times article dug up by historian Peggy Gavan, a saloon keeper named CW McAuliffe and the city alderman James J Mooney set up the stunt, searching through Brooklyn strays to find a cat that, as they put it, “was inclined to see the world”. The pair stumbled upon a gray cat they named Ned, who, with the blessing of the bridge’s chief engineer, was placed in a basket and let out on the center of the structure, and walked toward Manhattan.
That’s just one tidbit you’ll learn on Gavan’s new Cats About Town walking tour, a two-hour romp through Brooklyn Heights that covers New York City history from a feline’s perspective. Don’t ask Gavan, a licensed tour guide, about architecture or celebrity sightings – over the course of two miles, she only covers cats, which surprisingly play an important role in the city’s formative years.
Tuesday, November 12th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of The Fabulous Four @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Comedy
Rated R (language)
1 hour, 38 minutes (2024)
Two female friends travel to Key West to be bridesmaids in a college girlfriend’s surprise wedding. Sisterhood is rekindled in a fun sort of way! Starring Bette Midler, Susan Sarandon, Megan Mullally, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Michael Bolton.
