Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be rainy, with a high of forty-one.

Whitewater’s Parks & Rec Board meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1941, Pres. Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Bill into law.  Here’s how the New York Times reported the story:

Washington, March 11 _ President Roosevelt signed the history making lease-lend bill at 3:50 P. M. today immediately after receiving it from the Capitol, where the House completed action by accepting the Senate amendments by a vote of 317 to 71.

Five minutes after the bill was signed the President approved a list of undisclosed quantities of war materials to be transferred at once from the American Army and Navy to the British and the Greeks, to bolster these powers in their life-and-death struggle with the Axis. Most of these first materials, the nature of which the President guarded, will go to Great Britain. Having thus promptly set the machinery to motion toward making the United States “the Arsenal of Democracy,” Mr. Roosevelt began work on a request to be sent to Congress tomorrow for an immediate appropriation of $7,000,000,000 with which to press the lease-lend effort to the fullest possible extent under the new law. This, he intimated, would be likely to include help to China as well as to Great Britain and Greece, and to all other nations which later may find themselves under threat of the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo alliance.

Here’s Puzzability’s Tuesday game:

This Week’s Game — March 10-14

Easy as Pi

This Friday is Pi Day: 3.14. For each day this week, we’re celebrating by starting with a word and adding the two-letter chunk PI (before, within, or after) to get a new word. The two-word answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the shorter word followed by the PI word.

Example:

Noisy bird that’s a sorcerer

Answer:

Mage magpie

What to Submit:

Submit the two-word phrase, with the PI word second (as “Mage magpie” in the example), for your answer.

Tuesday, March 11

Judge at the trial of Jesus who fails to show up on time

Good morning.

Our week begins with sunny skies and mild temperatures, with a Monday high of forty-nine.

Tonight at 6 PM, the Planning Commission meets; at 7 PM there will be a joint meeting of the Planning Commission and Common Council for a public hearing of proposed residential zoning code changes from the Zoning Rewrite project.

From Fox News comes the story of a pug that wandered through a police line, only to challenge officers and a K9 engaged in a standoff at a nearby house. After the confrontation, the pug executes a tactical retreat.

For more about the encounter, see Fox News Insider.

On this day in 1854, an act of oppression later falls to a victory for liberty in Racine:

1854 – Glover’s Capture
On this date, Joshua Glover, a slave from Missouri, was captured by federal agents in Racine. Abolitionists led by Sherman Booth stormed the Milwaukee jail where he was held and got him safely to Canada through the Underground Railroad. [Source: Badger Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Holmes, pg 184-202]

Puzzability begins a new series that’s all about pi:

This Week’s Game — March 10-14

Easy as Pi

This Friday is Pi Day: 3.14. For each day this week, we’re celebrating by starting with a word and adding the two-letter chunk PI (before, within, or after) to get a new word. The two-word answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the shorter word followed by the PI word.

Example:

Noisy bird that’s a sorcerer

Answer:

Mage magpie

What to Submit:

Submit the two-word phrase, with the PI word second (as “Mage magpie” in the example), for your answer.

Monday, March 10

Suggestive robbery on the high seas

Good morning.

Sunday will be mostly sunny with highs in the lower forties.

It’s on this day in 1862 that the Confederate ironclad Virginia clashes with the Union Monitor off Hampton Roads, Virginia.

On this day in 1959, a famous houseguest is born:

Kato Kaelin Born
On this date Kato Kaelin was born in Milwaukee. He made a few appearances in film and TV, but is mainly known for his testimony in the O.J. Simpson trial. Kaelin lived on Simpson’s estate when O.J.’s wife was murdered. [Source: Internet Movie Database Inc.]

Good morning.

We will have gradual clearing in the Whippet City today, with a high of twenty-seven. Sunrise on Saturday is 6:19 AM and sunset 5:53 PM. The moon is in its first quarter.

Friday’s poll results are in: there’s very little support (only 15.79%) for living in a giant hamster wheel.

Lego has a new, large model of a Star Wars sand crawler: Behold the New 3,296-piece Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler!

It looks truly impressive. The model’s due to hit stores in May.

On this day in 1983, Pres. Reagan again refers to the Soviets as an evil empire:

Speaking to a convention of the National Association of Evangelicals in Florida on this day in 1983, President Ronald Reagan publicly refers to the Soviet Union as an evil empire for the second time in his career. He had first used the phrase in a 1982 speech at the British House of Commons. Some considered Reagan’s use of the Star Wars film-inspired terminology to be brilliant democratic rhetoric. Others, including many within the international diplomatic community, denounced it as irresponsible bombast.

He was right – they slaughtered millions and oppressed hundreds of millions more. Even the slightest of Soviet actions would have been violations of human rights in any civilized nation.

On this day in 1862, a soon-to-be-notable Wisconsin unit readies in Kenosha:

1862 – (Civil War) 1st Wisconsin Cavalry Mustered In
The 1st Wisconsin Cavalry mustered in at Camp Harvey, Kenosha, and left for for St. Louis, Missouri, a week later. It would go on to fight in the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863 and in the Atlanta Campaign the following year. It also helped capture Confederate President Jefferson Davis on May 10, 1865. The 1st Cavalry lost about half its men in three years: six officers and 67 enlisted men were killed in combat and seven officers and 321 enlisted men died from disease.

Good morning.

We’ll have a slight chance (20%) of afternoon rain, with a high of thirty-nine.

On this day in 1811, a great naturalist (to be) is born:

1811 – Increase Allen Lapham Born
A pioneer naturalist and noted author, Increase Allen Lapham was instrumental in establishing the Milwaukee public high school program. He was one of the founders of Milwaukee Female Seminary in 1848 and served as president of the State Historical Society from 1862 to 1871. Lapham came to Milwaukee in 1836 to serve as chief engineer and secretary for the Rock River Canal Company.

He was one of the first authors and map makers in Wisconsin. Among approximately 80 titles in his bibliography, most notable was his Antiquities of Wisconsin, the first book length investigation of Wisconsin’s Indian mounds. Lapham also served as chief geologist for Wisconsin from 1873 to 1875. He founded many educational, civic, and scientific organizations in Wisconsin. You can see many of his writings, letters, maps, and drawings, at Turning Points in Wisconsin Historyby typing “Lapham” into the search box. [Source:Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, SHSW 1960, pg. 221]

Puzzability‘s opera-themed series ends with Friday’s game:

This Week’s Game — March 3-7

Opera Boxes

What opera, doc? For each day this week, we’ll give a three-by-three letter grid in which we’ve hidden the title of an opera. Each has 10 or more letters and any number of words. To find the title, start at any letter and move from letter to letter by traveling to any adjacent letter—across, up and down, or diagonally. You may come back to a letter you’ve used previously, but may not stay in the same spot twice in a row. You will not always need all nine letters in the grid.

Example:

Answer:

Il Trovatore

What to Submit:

Submit the opera’s title (as “Il Trovatore” in the example) for your answer.

Friday, March 7

Good morning.

Thursday will be a mostly sunny day with a high of twenty-eight. Sunrise today is 6:22 AM and sunset is 5:51 PM. The moon is a waxing crescent with 32% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets tonight at 6 PM.

On this day in 1899, Bayer patents aspirin:

…the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin registers Aspirin, the brand name for acetylsalicylic acid, on behalf of the German pharmaceutical company Friedrich Bayer & Co.

Now the most common drug in household medicine cabinets, acetylsalicylic acid was originally made from a chemical found in the bark of willow trees. In its primitive form, the active ingredient, salicin, was used for centuries in folk medicine, beginning in ancient Greece when Hippocrates used it to relieve pain and fever. Known to doctors since the mid-19thcentury, it was used sparingly due to its unpleasant taste and tendency to damage the stomach.

In 1897, Bayer employee Felix Hoffman found a way to create a stable form of the drug that was easier and more pleasant to take. (Some evidence shows that Hoffman’s work was really done by a Jewish chemist, Arthur Eichengrun, whose contributions were covered up during the Nazi era.) After obtaining the patent rights, Bayer began distributing aspirin in powder form to physicians to give to their patients one gram at a time. The brand name came from “a” for acetyl, “spir” from the spirea plant (a source of salicin) and the suffix “in,” commonly used for medications. It quickly became the number-one drug worldwide….

Here’s the Thursday Puzzability game:

This Week’s Game — March 3-7

Opera Boxes

What opera, doc? For each day this week, we’ll give a three-by-three letter grid in which we’ve hidden the title of an opera. Each has 10 or more letters and any number of words. To find the title, start at any letter and move from letter to letter by traveling to any adjacent letter—across, up and down, or diagonally. You may come back to a letter you’ve used previously, but may not stay in the same spot twice in a row. You will not always need all nine letters in the grid.

Example:

Answer:

Il Trovatore

What to Submit:

Submit the opera’s title (as “Il Trovatore” in the example) for your answer.

Thursday, March 6