FREE WHITEWATER

Daily Bread, Elections, US Senate Race 2024, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.16.24: Tim Michels 2.0 Eric Hovde Announces U.S. Senate Run

by  • 

 Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 30. Sunrise is 6:49 and sunset 5:28 for 10h 38m 23s of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter with 50.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1960, the U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton begins Operation Sandblast, setting sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.

Scott Bauer reports Republican businessman Hovde to enter Wisconsin US Senate race against Baldwin: 

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Multimillionaire Republican businessman Eric Hovde is planning to launch a bid for U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwinnext week.

Hovde campaign spokesperson Ben Voelkel said Thursday that Hovde, 59, will get into the race next week after months of preparation.

….

Hovde’s business empire includes Hovde Properties, a real estate development company founded by his grandfather in 1933, and three banking companies. He is CEO of Sunwest Bank, has appeared in television commercials for them that air out west, and owns a $7 million estate in Laguna Beach, California, in addition to his property in Madison.

He returned to Madison in 2011 after living in Washington, D.C., for 24 years.

Baldwin campaign spokesperson Andrew Mamo derided Hovde as a “mega millionaire California bank owner” who will try to “buy this Senate seat.”

“We look forward to comparing Eric Hovde, a man who was named one of Orange County’s most influential people three years in a row, to Tammy Baldwin, a public servant with a proven track record of standing up to the wealthy and well connected on behalf of middle-class Wisconsin families,” Mamo said in a statement.

Scott Mayer, a Franklin businessman, and former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke are also considering Senate runs. Other higher profile Republicans, including U.S. Reps. Tom Tiffany and Mike Gallagher, opted against running.

Robotic arm catch — Space station astronauts pick up a Cygnus spacecraft: 

Cats, Science/Nature

Friday Catblogging: They Know It’s You

by  • 

Nicola Davis reports Big cats can tell apart known and unknown human voices, study finds (‘Tigers, cheetahs and snow leopards, like domesticated cats, respond differently to familiar and unfamiliar voices’):

From tigers to cheetahs, big cats may seem majestically aloof but researchers have found they can tell apart familiar and unfamiliar human voices, suggesting that even animals that shun group living are far from socially inept.

While cats are often portrayed as somewhat standoffish, researchers have previously found that domesticated felines can tell apart the voice of their owner from that of other humans.

Now researchers have found the pets’ exotic cousins, including tigers, cheetahs and cougars, also have an ear for different tones – at least when living in captivity.

Prof Jennifer Vonk, of Oakland University, in Rochester, Michigan, who co-authored the research, said the findings could reflect the need for such animals in the wild to identify their own cubs and keep tabs on who might be in their neighbourhood. She said the skill could also help them pay attention to alarm calls from other species.

 

Agriculture, Daily Bread, Dairy, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.15.24: Dairies Decline in America’s Dairyland (But Lesser Decline in Milk Cows)

by  • 

 Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 6:51 and sunset 5:26 for 10h 35m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 38.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1862, Confederates commanded by Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd attack General Ulysses S. Grant’s Union forces besieging Fort Donelson in Tennessee. Unable to break the fort’s encirclement, the Confederates surrender the following day.

Madeline Heim reports Wisconsin lost 10% of farms, 30% of dairies in 5 years, U.S. agriculture census shows:

Wisconsin lost nearly 10% of farms, 30% of dairies since 2017

Wisconsin had 58,521 farms in 2022, census data show, representing a nearly 10% loss since 2017.

Dairy farms, long the state’s calling card, continued to plummet. There were 6,216 dairy farms in Wisconsin in 2022, down from just above 9,000 in 2017. Further, state data show the number has dropped more since the census data was recorded. As of Feb. 1, Wisconsin had 5,644 milk cow herds.

As the number of farms decrease, existing ones are getting bigger. The average Wisconsin farm in 2022 was 236 acres, the largest it’s been in more than two decades. And it’s not just acreage. Herd sizes are getting larger as well. The number of milk cows in the state declined less than 2% since 2017, despite the drop in dairy farms.

Private US moon lander launched into space:

Crapweasels, Daily Bread, Elections, Fair Maps, Gerrymandering, Legislation, Legislature, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.14.24: Speaker Vos Rushes While the Rushing is Good

by  • 

 Good morning.

Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:52 and sunset 5:25 for 10h 32m 57s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 28.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 2018, a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is one of the deadliest school massacres with 17 fatalities and 17 injuries.

Baylor Spears reports Legislature adopts Evers’s maps in second attempt to choose before state Supreme Court (‘Most Democrats vote no, saying they don’t trust Republicans’):

Six parties submitted maps to be considered and consultants recently said that the two sets of legislative maps submitted by Republican lawmakers and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) amounted to more partisan gerrymandering.

The consultants did not pick a preferred map, but said the other maps, including Evers’ submission, were “nearly indistinguishable.” Those proposals have been projected to reduce Republican control of the Legislature from its current near-supermajority status 

Republicans lawmakers have found Evers’ maps, which would likely keep a Republican majority, although a smaller one, in the Legislature, preferable to the other submissions before the state Supreme Court. 

“Republicans were not stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Sen. Van Wannggard (R-Racine) said in a statement about the vote. “It was a matter of choosing to be stabbed, shot, poisoned or led to the guillotine. We chose to be stabbed, so we can live to fight another day.” 

….

Vos, who was the only representative to speak during the floor session, also rejected the idea that the move was a legal strategy.

Ahead of the floor sessions, some Democrats expressed concerns that Republicans wanted to pass Evers’ maps and then back a federal legal challenge before Republican-nominated U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Diane Sykes, formerly a conservative justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Such a challenge “could ultimately keep the state with its current gerrymandered maps, Democrats told the progressive news platform Democracy Docket. 

“If we get these new maps, the governor’s maps, signed by the Republicans, it’s more than likely that there’ll be a challenge in the 7th Circuit Court,” U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan said over the weekend. “We’re fearful the Republicans are finally trying to come around to do what they should have done in the first place, but they’re doing it with — I guess the technical term would be ‘with sh-t-eating grins on their faces.’ We can assume that this is not done because of the idea of good government.”

Evers’s maps would be an improvement, but Vos’s trustworthiness is discernible only with an electron microscope. Delays in Evers’s maps, either as implementation within the legislation or by litigation against implementation, would be objectionable. 

Vos does objectionable quite well. 

Note to the special-interest men (movers & shakers, lobbyists, p.r. men, whatever) in Whitewater: looking up to Robin Vos is like looking up to the pigeon that’s gonna relieve itself on a car. Normal people do not respect the men, or the pigeons, who do that.

Ukraine’s forces claim to have destroyed a large Russian landing ship in the Black Sea: 

America, Daily Bread, Economy

Daily Bread for 2.13.24: National Inflation Rate Continues to Decline

by  • 

 Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 37. Sunrise is 6:53 and sunset 5:24 for 10h 30m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 18.6% of its visible disk illuminated. 

The Whitewater School Board’s Calendar Committee meets at 4 PM, and Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1689, William and Mary are proclaimed co-rulers of England.

Rachel Siegel reports Inflation eased further in January as Fed weighs when to cut rates (‘The report comes as the Federal Reserve is pressing on in its fight to tame high prices — with plenty of success already in the rearview mirror’):

Prices cooled further in January, offering the latest sign that inflation has eased significantly since its pandemic-era surge but still hovers above what policymakers consider normal.

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday morning showed prices rose 3.1 percent in January, compared with the year before. They also rose 0.3 percent compared with the previous month.

The report comes as the Federal Reserve presses on in its fight to tame high prices — but the central bank already has plenty of success in the rearview mirror. After sprinting to hoist interest rates in 2022 and 2023, officials are entering a new phase: cutting borrowing costs multiple times this year. The message is that even though inflation hasn’t settled all the way down, the economy is stable enough for the Fed to take its foot off the brake.

NASA’s Perseverance rover sees Martian moon Phobos transit the Sun:

Congress, Crackpots, Daily Bread, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 2.12.24: Glenn Grothman’s Spare Time

by  • 

 Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 43. Sunrise is 6:55 and sunset 5:22 for 10h 27m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 10.5% of its visible disk illuminated. 

Whitewater’s Equal Opportunities Commission meets at 5 PM, the Alcohol Licensing Committee also meets at 5 PM, and the Planning Board meets at 6 PM. 

On this day in 1809, Abraham Lincoln is born. 

 Lawrence Andrea reports Wisconsin’s Glenn Grothman has become one of the most prolific House floor speakers:

Grothman, in fact, delivers more floor speeches than nearly any other House member. Last Congress, he ranked first for number of “special order” speeches delivered and in the top 10 for one-minute speeches — remarks typically given at the end of the day on a topic of a lawmaker’s choosing. He’s continued that trend so far this Congress.

….

So just what does Grothman find important? 

His speeches are wide-ranging and have covered everything from touting the benefits of Vitamin D to fight the effects of the COVID-19 virus to pushing back against diversity and inclusion programs and what he’s called “an obsession with race in our military.”

During one general speech last July, Grothman began by saying he had “a few issues” that ought to be “brought to the attention of the news media to help them with articles that would educate the American public a little bit on issues of importance.” 

He then delivered 29 minutes of remarks in which he pondered the possibility of reaching a settlement in the war between Ukraine and Russia, speculated without evidence that there are more transgender people now than 30 years ago because “it is presented favorably as a lifestyle for a lot of young people,” lamented the “break down” of the nuclear family and railed against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at universities.

So, idle hands are the devil’s workshop after all… 

Man who built the Eiffel Tower with 700K matchsticks awarded world record after all:

Congress, Daily Bread, Politics, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.11.24: Wisconsin’s Mike Gallagher Heads for the Exits

by  • 

 Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 39. Sunrise is 6:56 and sunset 5:21 for 10h 24m 54s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 3.9% of its visible disk illuminated. 

On this day in 1979, the Iranian Revolution establishes an Islamic theocracy under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

 Joe Schulz reports Green Bay Congressman Mike Gallagher will not seek reelection (‘Announcement comes less than a week after Gallagher voted against impeaching Homeland Security secretary’): 

After four terms in Congress, Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Green Bay, announced Saturday that he will not seek reelection.

The announcement comes less than a week after Gallagher was one of only four Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives to vote against impeachingHomeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The vote failed 214-216.

Gallagher has faced backlash for his vote from other House Republicans, and local Republican Party chapters in his district. Some prominent figures on the right even called for Gallagher to face a primary challenge.

Well, yes, but Gallagher had already decided months ago not to challenge U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, so there has been ample evidence that his political ambitions were temperate rather than hot.

The Paul Ryan route is less contentious and more lucrative:

Paul Ryan was appointed to the Fox Corporation Board of Directors in March 2019 . He is a general partner of the private equity firm Solamere Capital, LLC and chair of the firm’s Executive Partner Group. He is Vice Chairman of Teneo Strategy LLC and also serves on the Advisory Boards of Robert Bosch Gmbh and Paradigm Operations L.P. and the Boards of Directors of Xactus (formerly UniversalCIS) and SHINE Medical Technologies, LLC. Mr. Ryan served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Executive Network Partnering Corporation from 2020 to 2022. He has been a Professor of the Practice, Political Science and Economics, at the University of Notre Dame since 2019. 

Volcanic eruption in Iceland subsides, though scientists warn more activity may follow:

Advertising, Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.10.24: The “King of the Super Bowl” Advertisements

by  • 

 Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 39. Sunrise is 6:57 and sunset 5:20 for 10h 22m 16s  of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1906, HMS Dreadnought, the first of a revolutionary new breed of battleships, is christened.

Meet the “King of the Super Bowl” advertisements:

Bryan Buckley is the director behind some of the biggest Super Bowl commercials. He’s spent 25 years behind the camera, even as the price of a 30-second Super Bowl spot rose to $7 million this year. CBS News’ Dana Jacobson sits down with him in L.A. to talk about his path to success.

This Family Owns the Lights of Hollywood:

Step into the neon world of ‘God’s Own Junkyard’, where words come to life in vibrant, dazzling and electrifying ways! Nestled in an unsuspecting warehouse in East London, this neon haven is more than just a workshop—it’s a shrine to the art of imagination. The Bracey family have been lighting up London since the 1960s, creating signs for some of the most iconic movies like Batman (1989), Mission Impossible (1996), The Expendables (2010) and more! Artist and Creative Director, Marcus Bracey even had curry with Stanley Kubrick after a day of filming on set of Eyes Wide Shut (1999). From crafting neon masterpieces for nightclubs to Hollywood blockbusters and the homes of A-list celebrities, ‘God’s Own Junkyard’ is the ultimate destination for all things neon. And with the biggest neon collection in Europe, open for free to the public, you can only imagine their electricity bill…

Climate, Daily Bread, Weather, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.9.24: A February Tornado in Wisconsin

by  • 

 Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 47. Sunrise is 6:59 and sunset 5:18 for 10h 19m 39s  of daytime. The moon is new with 0.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1841, the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the United States v. The Amistad case that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally.

  Wisconsin Public Radio reports First-ever February tornado recorded along Dane-Rock County border:

For the first time on record for February, a tornado touched down Thursday night near Edgerton along the Dane-Rock County border.

The National Weather Service confirmed the tornado at 6:00 p.m. and said it was a dangerous storm and to “seek immediate safe shelter if in its path.”

A tornado warning was issued for northeastern Rock, southeastern Dane and southwestern Jefferson counties in effect until 6:30 p.m.

Videos show portions of last night’s storm:

Orcas trapped in sea ice off Japan’s coast have escaped:

Animals, Cats

Friday Catblogging: Lions v. Ants

by  • 

Kyle Melnick reports In Kenya, the king of the jungle faces a new challenge — ants (‘Researchers said big-headed ants started an “ecological chain reaction” in a Kenya conservancy, impacting lions and other animals’):

Lions have long stood atop the food chain, but now a new enemy has forced the dominant carnivores in Kenya to change their hunting strategies and diets.

The threat? Ants that are smaller than a grain of rice.

The invasive insects that arrived in Kenya in the early 2000s, probably due to global shipping and international tourism, have caused an “ecological chain reaction,” according to researchers. Big-headed ants kill native acacia ants, which protect trees from elephants and other herbivores in Kenya — one of a few African nations with a sizable lion population — by swarming into the animals’ nostrils and biting when they try to eat the trees’ leaves, branches and bark.

As acacia ants have dwindled, elephants have been able to knock down and eat more whistling thorn trees. With fewer trees, lions have lost the cover they rely on to stealthily attack zebras, their primary prey.

These ants have become a pestilence, and the sooner humanity comes to the defense of our fellow mammals, the better.

It’s not as though humans don’t know how to handle ants:

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, February 13, 1 PM @ Seniors in the Park, The Holdovers

by  • 

Tuesday, February 13th at 1 PM, there will be a showing of The Holdovers @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Drama/Comedy

Rated R (language)

2 hours, 13 minutes (2023)

A cranky history teacher (Paul Giamati) at an obscure Eastern prep school is forced to stay on campus over the Holidays with the few students and staff (DaVine Joy Randolph) that have no place to go. Golden Globes were awarded for Best Actor; Supporting Actress.

One can find more information about The Holdovers at the Internet Movie Database.

Daily Bread, Food, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.8.24: Bossam Kimchi & Mbakbaka

by  • 

 Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 55. Sunrise is 7:00 and sunset 5:17 for 10h 17m 04s  of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1971, the NASDAQ stock market index opens for the first time.

  Dongjoon Choi: Bossam Kimchi | Wisconsin Life:

For Dongjoon (DJ) Choi of Plover, making kimchi as a child was a family affair. Kimjang, the Korean tradition of preparing and sharing kimchi, is something Choi remembers fondly from his childhood in South Korea. Choi is now determined to keep the kimjang tradition alive in his home.

Zainab Hassen: Mbakbaka | Wisconsin Life:

Mbakbaka is a hearty, one-pot Libyan tomato-based pasta stew. It features short pasta, both dried spices and hot peppers, and traditionally, a choice of chicken or beef, in a flavorful tomato broth. Zainab Hassen shares this dish that was a staple of her childhood.

City, Common Council, Council Leadership, Daily Bread, Local Government

Daily Bread for 2.7.24: What’s Next, Common Council?

by  • 

 Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 48. Sunrise is 7:01 and sunset 5:16 for 10h 14m 29s  of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 7.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM. 

On this day in 1979, Pluto moves inside Neptune’s orbit for the first time since either was discovered.

  The Whitewater Common Council met last night, and appointed two residents to fill vacancies (Carol McCormick to fill an at-large vacancy into April 2024, and Patrick Singer to fill the District 1 vacancy into April 2025.)

In all that comes next, as with what’s come before, it’s what officeholders elected or appointed say and do: public words and public actions in sessions, on recordings, and in transcripts.

People choose freely, sometimes well, sometimes poorly. Whitewater deserves only the former.

California rains trap travelers like rats hotel guests: