Good morning.

Tuesday will be a hot and sunny day, with a high of ninety.

At 5:30 PM tonight, there will be a joint Common Council and Planning session on the Zoning Rewrite project.

For Tuesday, it’s a Scientific American trivia question about inside temperatures. (Clicking the question below takes you to the answer on the SciAm website.)

Here’s the question for today:

How hot is the earth at its core?

They might know the answer, but they’ve their hands full as it is:

On this day in 1813, America wins a naval victory over Britain:

The Battle of Lake Erie, sometimes called the Battle of Put-in-Bay, was fought on 10 September 1813, in Lake Erie off the coast of Ohio during the War of 1812. Nine vessels of the United States Navy defeated and captured six vessels of British Royal Navy. This ensured American control of the lake for the rest of the war, which in turn allowed the Americans to recover Detroit and win the Battle of the Thames to break the Indian confederation of Tecumseh. It was one of the biggest naval battles of the War of 1812.

Good morning.

Whitewater begins her work week with cloudy skies through mid morning, then clearing, and a high of eighty-nine.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets this evening at 6 PM.

On this day in 1776, America becomes the United States:

…the Continental Congress formally declares the name of the new nation to be the “United States” of America. This replaced the term “United Colonies,” which had been in general use.

In the Congressional declaration dated September 9, 1776, the delegates wrote, “That in all continental commissions, and other instruments, where, heretofore, the words ‘United Colonies’ have been used, the stile be altered for the future to the “United States.”

A resolution by Richard Henry Lee, which had been presented to Congress on June 7 and approved on July 2, 1776, issued the resolve, “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States….” As a result, John Adams thought July 2 would be celebrated as “the most memorable epoch in the history of America.” Instead, the day has been largely forgotten in favor of July 4, when Jefferson’s edited Declaration of Independence was adopted. That document also states, “That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES.” However, Lee began with the line, while Jefferson saved it for the middle of his closing paragraph.

By September, the Declaration of Independence had been drafted, signed, printed and sent to Great Britain. What Congress had declared to be true on paper in July was clearly the case in practice, as Patriot blood was spilled against the British on the battlefields of Boston, Montreal, Quebec and New York. Congress had created a country from a cluster of colonies and the nation’s new name reflected that reality.

On 9.9.1954, the residents of Janesville debate alcohol restrictions:

1954 – Janesville Residents Debate Liquor Laws
On this date Janesville residents participated in a public forum at the Janesville Public Library. The topic of discussion was whether Janesville should allow women to be served at the bar, in taverns. Residents also debated whether dancing should be allowed in taverns. Speaking to lift the bans was Erv Lacey, field director of the Tavern League of Wisconsin. Lacey noted that the law against women being served was discriminatory and contended that Janesville taverns lose business because of the laws. The Rev. Frank Dauner, pastor of United Brethren Church, said the strict prohibitions should remian intact because alcohol threatened public health, safety and peaceful domestic life. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

On the 9.6.2013 Friday Poll: Dog or… Chupacabra?!?, there’s a fairly decisive result: 57.69% say chupacabra, to 42.31% who say dog. No need for a recount: a clear majority of respondents say those blue-eyed quadrupeds are blood-sucking demons from beyond.

A noted cryptozoologist fortuitously saw the Friday post, and kindly passed along a link to http://chupacabrapictures.org/. Much appreciated, to be sure.

I’ll mix things up a bit by adding a daily trivia question from Scientific American online. (Clicking the question below takes you to the answer on the SciAm website.)

Here’s the question for today:

How far do Monarch butterflies travel a day, on average, during migration?

Good morning.

A mostly cloudy Sunday, with a high of seventy-four, awaits.

NASA recently launched a new moon probe, LADEE, and after a technical glitch now resolved, it’s on the way.

….LADEE moon mission, short for Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, is aimed at studying the moon’s thin atmosphere and solving long-standing mysteries of the moon’s dust.

The atmosphere of the moon, known as an “exosphere,” is so thin that individual molecules don’t interact with each other. Similar environments have been seen on Mercury, the moons of outer planets in the solar system, as well as some asteroids, so scientists are hoping LADEE will help better understand these strange environments.

LADEE scientists also hope the mission will yield insights into the odd “lunar glow” spotted on the moon’s horizon by Apollo astronauts during NASA’s lunar landings in the 1960s and 1970s. The mission will also track how moon dust moves across the lunar surface, which is key interest because the abrasive stuff can stick to spacesuits and clog up systems on future moon vehicles and rovers.

LADEE will take about 30 days to reach the moon and spend 100 days performing its lunar atmosphere and dust mission. The spacecraft will also test a new laser communications system that NASA has billed as a kind of new “interplanetary Internet.”

At the end of its mission, LADEE will plummet down to the moon and crash into the lunar surface.

Here’s the liftoff:

On this day in 1958, a regulation ends:

1958 – Janesville Women Belly Up to the Bar
On this date the Janesville city council voted 4-2 to finally end a paternalistic and discriminatory ordinance that prohibited women from drinking at the bar. Since the end of Prohibition in 1933, women had been banned from being served while standing at the bar in Janesville taverns. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Good morning.

Saturday will be partly sunny, with a high of eighty-five, and a one-fifth chance of afternoon thundershowers. Sunrise was 6:26 AM, and sunset will be 7:19 PM. The moon is a waxing crescent with 5% of its visible disk illuminated.

What do the skies above Japan look like? They look like this: