Tuesday, August 13th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of In the Land of Saints and Sinners @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Crime/Action/Thriller
Rated R (Language/Violence)
1 hour, 46 minutes (2024)
It’s 1974, during “The Troubles.” A disillusioned hit man (Liam Neeson) comes out of retirement for one last job, when an IRA bomber on the run arrives in his sleepy Irish village. Totally filmed on location: an absolutely beautiful depiction of Irish locales, people, music and culture. Liam Neeson considers this one of his best film roles, ever.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 79. Sunrise is 5:55, and sunset is 8:05, for 14h 10m 06s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 15.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1974, President Nixon, in a nationwide television address, announces his resignation from the office of the President of the United States effective noon the next day.
Whitewater has a public university, and a goal of this community should be to encourage graduates of UW-Whitewater to remain in the city as residents after their graduation. Statewide, the Universities of Wisconsin have had success with graduates remaining in the Badger state. A local goal should be to encourage the graduates of our campus to take up long-term residency in Whitewater.
Almost 90% of Wisconsin residents with a bachelor’s degree from the Universities of Wisconsin were still living in the state five years after graduation.
That compares to 10% of graduates who were originally from Minnesota and 16% of graduates from other parts of the country or world, according to data from 2021. These findings, and more, were shared in a report the system released Wednesday. The report, “Facts and Trends,” includes information on state funding trends, enrollment and participation rates, affordability and tuition.
That Wisconsin residents stay in Wisconsin does not surprise me: this is a congenial place to live.
The goal for Whitewater, however, should be to encourage UW-Whitewater students, from whatever communities before attending our campus, to become long-term residents of our community after graduation.
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.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:49, and sunset is 8:11, for 14h 21m 58s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 0.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1977, Tandy Corporation announces the TRS-80, one of the world’s first mass-produced personal computers.
By Dave Jones – EEVblog, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34239424
0:00 Intro 0:20 Why is this tree so lonely? 04:06 It’s the world’s deadliest garden! 06:18 Imagine holding a 100-pound vegetable 08:45 The world’s hottest river!
Asking Kevin of the the_three_chimigos how he keeps his streets in order:
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.
A 1-year-old cat has found a new home with a couple from Ukraine, who themselves found a new home in Philadelphia. But that cat was fighting for its life after tragedy struck a few weeks ago. Now, thanks to local veterinary doctors, she’s on the road to recovery. This is their story: https://6abc.com/15128542
Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with scattered afternoon thunderstorms and a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:47, and sunset is 8:14, for 14h 26m 32s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 9.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1774, British scientist Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen gas, corroborating the prior discovery of this element by German-Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
Starting next week, tens of thousands of high school students across Wisconsin will be directly admitted to Universities of Wisconsin schools without filing applications.
The admissions are part of a new program, launched in December, to boost admission on the state’s public university campuses.
Next week through September, students will start receiving emails letting them know they’ve been admitted. School districts across the state participating in the Direct Admit Wisconsin program shared student grade point averages and course credits with University of Wisconsin administrators for rising seniors. The program identifies if a student qualifies to be directly admitted to any of the 10 participating campuses.
UW-Madison, UW-La Crosse and UW-Eau Claire are not participating.
Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman said this week 50,000 students across 330 high schools are eligible under the program.
This is a sensible policy as it reduces one unnecessary step to entry.
What are some skywatching highlights in August 2024? Mars and Jupiter have a super close meetup, the conditions look good for the Perseid meteors, and how to observe a stellar nursery – the Lagoon Nebula.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 89. Sunrise is 5:45, and sunset is 8:15, for 14h 28m 46s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 15.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4:30 PM.
On this day in 1777, the Second Continental Congress passes a resolution that the services of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette “be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connexions, he have the rank and commission of major-general of the United States.”
Many Wisconsinites know the presidential candidate they support; from a candidate’s perspective, support only matters if it leads to a vote or a contribution. Will those supporters turn out? In deep-blue Dane County, it looks like blue support (never in doubt) will lead to blue voting. Thomas Beaumont reports Harris gives Democrats a jolt in a critical part of swing-state Wisconsin:
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — More than 40 people filed into a converted coffee shop on a recent Saturday morning in Madison, Wisconsin, to organize in a west-side neighborhood for Vice President Kamala Harris.
A month ago, fewer than 10 people showed up for a similar event for President Joe Biden. Some told organizers they were no longer willing to knock on doors in Wisconsin’s famously liberal state capital.
The excitement among loyal Democrats lit by Harris replacing Biden has enlivened the party’s base in Wisconsin, particularly in areas where the vice president must run up big margins to carry a swing state that Biden flipped from Republican Donald Trump.
“Kamala Harris is the defibrillator that the Democratic Party needed,” said John Anzalone, who was Biden’s chief campaign pollster in 2020.
Dane County, which includes Madison, is the fastest-growing county in the state, fueled by the combination of the University of Wisconsin and the state capital’s workforce.
A local version of this excitement will present itself among Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters in Whitewater.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:45, and sunset is 8:16, for 14h 30m 58s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 24 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1981, as many as 50,000 demonstrators, mostly women and children, took to the streets in Lodz to protest food ration shortages in Communist Poland.
It’s become a common tactic in Wisconsin (and other states) for a resident to challenge voting rights on narrow procedural grounds. The consequence of this approach is to burden a lawful means of voting until residents are dissuaded from voting by those means. One lawsuit of this kind was dismissed Monday in Circuit Court. Todd Richmond reports Judge dismisses lawsuit challenging absentee voting procedure in battleground Wisconsin:
A Wisconsin judge dismissed a lawsuit Monday that challenged absentee voting procedures, preventing administrative headaches for local election clerks and hundreds of thousands of voters in the politically volatile swing state ahead of fall elections.
The ruling stems from a lawsuit Thomas Oldenberg, a voter from Amberg, Wisconsin, filed in February. Oldenberg argued that the state Elections Commission hasn’t been following a state law that requires voters who electronically request absentee ballots to place a physical copy of the request in the ballot return envelope. Absentee ballots without the request copy shouldn’t count, he maintained.
Commission attorneys countered in May that language on the envelope that voters sign indicating they requested the ballot serves as a copy of the request. Making changes now would disrupt long-standing absentee voting procedures on the eve of multiple elections and new envelopes can’t be designed and reprinted in time for the Aug. 13 primary and Nov. 5 general election, the commission maintained.
Monday in Whitewater will see scattered thundershowers with a high of 79. Sunrise is 5:44, and sunset is 8:17, for 14h 33m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 33.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
And so, and so, following in the tradition of failed carpetbagger Tim Michels, Hovde spent the weekend emphasizing that Wisconsin is, for him, only a side hustle:
