Sunday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 65. Sunrise is 6:40 and sunset is 6:55 for 12 hours 15 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 66.23 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1982, NFL players begin a 57-day strike (reducing the 1982 season to 9 regular games).
I read recently that the WISGOP state Senate candidate for Senate District 15, of which Whitewater is part, promises that he “will fight for policies that support farm viability, cut unnecessary regulations, and ensure agriculture remains the backbone of our rural economy.” There’s much dissonance in that, isn’t there? The current GOP positions from Washington Palm Beach, Florida, have only made Wisconsin’s farmers worse off:
Seven farms across Wisconsin filed for bankruptcy in the first eight months of 2026. Filings have come in at a slower pace than 2025 but are still on an overall upward trend since the COVID-19 pandemic ended.
By this same time in 2025, 14 Wisconsin farms had filed for bankruptcy with 16 total farm bankruptcies statewide at the end of the year.
[…]
“The conflict in Iran has put additional strain on our farm due to the concomitant increases in the price of fertilizer inputs for crops to feed our cattle and diesel fuel to power our farm equipment,” the owner of a Walworth County dairy farm wrote in bankruptcy court documents filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
That Walworth County dairy farm is the latest to file for Chapter 12 bankruptcy in Wisconsin’s Eastern District. The farm had been in operation for more than a century, starting in 1901, court documents say.
[…]
But for some family farms, Chapter 7 liquidation is not a desirable option as younger generations of farmers try to take on their family’s operation.
The dairy farm in Walworth County was scheduled for foreclosure July 14. The court documents say the farmers’ son completed a dairy science degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with the intention of taking over the farm someday.
“Due to the application of [his] dairy science knowledge, and help from a new nutritionist, the dairy herd’s production is climbing, but [we’re] still unable to secure refinancing,” the farm owner wrote in the bankruptcy filing.
But at Mar-a-Lago, they’ve not had their minds on agriculture —
An entertainer performs at Mar-a-Lago’s ‘Great Gatsby’-themed Halloween party on 10.31.25. Screenshot from an attendee video, as reported in The Daily Beast.
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Forthcomingtopics (in no particular order): A New Ethics Ordinance, Development in Downtown Whitewater (follow-up), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.
Our White House and national security correspondent, David Sanger, compares past “forever wars” that President Trump campaigned against with the war in Iran that has no clear endgame.
Saturday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 71. Sunrise is 6:39 and sunset is 6:57 for 12 hours 18 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 57.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
It’s rainy today. There is life and beauty in the rain. Here in agricultural Wisconsin, we likely understand that as well as anyone anywhere in America.
Cynthia Barnett’s Rain: A Natural and Cultural History describes the importance of rain in ecology, in meteorology, and in history and culture. And yet, and yet, she’s not sentimental about rain’s potential for destruction through flooding (sometimes unavoidable, sometimes the result of poor human planning).
It’s a fine book, well-written and memorable. Highly recommended, especially on days like these.
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Forthcomingtopics (in no particular order): A New Ethics Ordinance, Development in Downtown Whitewater (follow-up), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.
Cynthia Barnett is an award-winning environmental journalist who has reported on water and climate change around the world. Her latest book is Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, longlisted for the National Book Award and a finalist for the 2016 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.
Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with evening rainstorms and a high of 71. Sunrise is 6:38 and sunset is 6:59 for 12 hours 21 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 47.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1948, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate without completing another senator’s term.
Diesel prices in Wisconsin have hit record highs as the war in Iran continues to disrupt the flow of the fuel globally.
In Wisconsin, the average price per gallon of diesel fuel on Wednesday was $6.13. Last year, the average in the state was $3.45 per gallon, according to data from the American Automobile Association.
Mike Semmann, president of the Wisconsin Grocers Association, said the price of diesel will have an impact on many different parts of the grocery supply chain.
“Diesel is to the economy what electricity is to a home,” he said. “For Wisconsin consumers, it’s not just about what diesel costs, but about how businesses across the state are really trying to work to keep those costs from becoming a burden on Wisconsin families.”
He said diesel costs affect every part of the supply chain, and grocery stores pay special attention to diesel prices as part of their overall costs.
“Diesel helps move milk to and from farms, ingredients to processors, products to stores and goods to consumers,” Semmann said.
In Wisconsin, about 85 percent of goods are transported by truck. The President of Wisconsin Motor Carriers Association, Dan Johnson, said about 30 percent of the costs for a trucking company go toward fuel. Trucking companies have to raise their prices for transporting goods when diesel prices get this high.
That’s 85% of Wisconsin goods transported by truck while diesel fuel prices have increased by nearly 78% in only one year.
What do those large percentages portend?
Nothing good for consumers.
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Forthcomingtopics (in no particular order): A New Ethics Ordinance, Development in Downtown Whitewater (follow-up), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.
Iran-backed Houthis have opened a new front in the war in the Middle East. The group’s quick offensive to take the southwestern coast of Yemen and control the Bab al-Mandeb Strait has sent shockwaves around the world.
WSJ explains how the militant group and other Iranian allies have moved to choke off oil shipments and attack Saudi Arabia exports, sending oil prices higher and complicating the U.S. war with Iran.
For the first time in a century, researchers say they’ve identified a new species of wild cat previously unknown to science.
Leopardus tilcayo —or the tilcayo tiger cat — is slender and spotted, with rounded ears. It is smaller than a typical house cat and lives in the Bolivian Yungas, the cloud forest where the Andes mountains meet the Amazon basin. The species was described for the first time in the journal Current Biology on Thursday.
It’s rare to find a new, relatively large mammal. Unsurprisingly, most newly discovered animal species are small in size, said Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, who co-authored the study and leads a wild cat conservation program called Programa de Investigación de Félidos Bolivia (Bolivian Felid Research and Conservation Program).
“This time, it’s a cat. That’s really novel. And it hasn’t happened in 100 years,” she said. “No one else had named it. No one else had described it.”
The size of the Leopardus tilcayopopulation is not clear yet.
“We really don’t know how many cats are still in the wild,” said Nogales-Ascarrunz, whose work as a conservationist is funded by National Geographic. “We need science, we need more studies to answer this question, which is actually critical for its conservation.”
Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 72. Sunrise is 6:37 and sunset is 7:01 for 12 hours 24 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 37.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1787, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, 39 delegates to the Constitutional Convention endorse the Constitution created during the four-month-long convention.
Yesterday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments on whether it should accept cases challenging Wisconsin’s congressional district maps as unlawfully gerrymandered. The question before the state’s high court was whether to take up challenges to these maps (a necessary preliminary to deciding the cases on the merits):
Members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court seemed open to redrawing the state’s U.S. House districts during oral arguments for two lawsuits claiming the current congressional map is gerrymandered.
The court’s liberal majority is considering whether to allow the cases seeking a new map before the 2028 election to proceed after panels of circuit court judges dismissed them this summer.
Attorneys representing Republican members of Congress and the GOP-controlled Wisconsin Legislature disputed those claims and argued plaintiffs are asking the court to go rogue by cutting lawmakers out of the redistricting process.
Debate on the merits of the suits lasted nearly eight hours Wednesday. Both cases argue the current 6-2 GOP majority in Wisconsin’s congressional delegation was designed by Republican legislators who drew the map in 2011. Then, the suits argue, that gerrymander was cemented by the Supreme Court’s former conservative majority in 2022 when it ordered a new House map with the least changes possible.
See Rich Kremer, Wisconsin justices hear congressional gerrymandering arguments, Wisconsin Public Radio, September 16, 2026. The cases are Bothfeld v. Wis. Elections Comm’n, No. 2026AP1168 and Wis. Bus. Leaders for Democracy v. Wis. Elections Comm’n, No. 2026AP1008. Audio recordings of the September 16, 2026 oral argument before the Wisconsin Supreme Court are available online.
Kremer correctly highlights a key question in this matter, about an earlier ruling of the Wisconsin Supreme Court to apply a ‘least change’ standard when evaluating redistricting of the congressional maps:
Chief Justice Jill Karofsky, who is among the court’s liberal majority, wasn’t a fan of the least change requirement either.
“Least change says we are going to bake in whatever the political motivations were of that 2011 Legislature, and we’re going to bake it in for perpetuity,” Karofsky said. “And we continue to follow least change in 2021 and in 2031 and 2041 and 2051.”
Conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn, who was part of the court’s majority that endorsed the least change directive, took issue with a claim that it gave “blind deference” to partisan gerrymandering. He said plaintiffs would have to prove justices intended to help Republicans, when the court explicitly said it didn’t.
“We said we don’t mean to do anything for partisan advantage,” said Hagedorn. “In fact, we mean to exclude that entirely from our consideration.”
‘Least change’ is, fundamentally, the issue here. Insulating least change from challenge absent a showing of intentionality leaves, practically and consequentially, a perpetual gerrymander of the WISGOP-created maps going forward, no matter how significantly voters’ legislative preferences might change.
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Forthcomingtopics (in no particular order): A New Ethics Ordinance, Development in Downtown Whitewater (follow-up), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.
See a breathtaking James Webb Space Telescope view of IC 348, an incredible stellar nursery where clouds of gas and dust are sculpted into glowing shapes as new stars take form. Located about 1,000 light-years away in Perseus, this vast cosmic landscape offers a stunning glimpse into a region where stars are being born.
And hidden within this stellar nursery are some fascinating discoveries—including brown dwarfs only a few times the mass of Jupiter.
Wednesday in Whitewater will see scattered showers this morning with a later mix of sun and clouds and a high of 71. Sunrise is 6:35 and sunset is 7:02 for 12 hours 27 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 28.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Parks and Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1959, Xerox introduces the first successful photocopier, the Xerox 914, in a demonstration on live television from New York City.
This was easily the right decision. Even-numbered years and odd-numbered years are sensibly treated the same way under that agreement. The MOU from 2024 has worked well, and provides polling access across our city. Ready access to polling places advances voting rights, and from those rights, representative government derives its legitimacy.
And yet, it advances something more: the harmony in the community that comes from inclusion and equal access, and makes possible progress in so many other areas.
Last night’s unanimous vote of the Whitewater Common Council was a good vote on an important community issue, and so, more broadly, yesterday was a good day.
Embedded below is the council discussion and public comment from last evening:
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Forthcomingtopics (in no particular order): A New Ethics Ordinance, Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.
With their pinpoint aerial precision, hummingbirds are the most impressive fliers in the bird world, and they’re among the most beautiful as well. In this video, take an up-close look at the shimmering colors of two Southern California hummingbird species—the rose-pink Anna’s Hummingbird and the velvety purple Costa’s Hummingbird. See these shimmering gems like you aren’t able to with a naked eye or binoculars with the help of Tim and Russell Laman’s expert still photos and slow-motion camera work.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 75. Sunrise is 6:34 and sunset is 7:04 for 12 hours 30 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 20.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Public Safety & Licensing Review Committee meets at 5 PM and the Whitewater Common Council meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1940, the Luftwaffe launches its largest and most concentrated attack of its entire campaign against Britain. Now known as the Battle of Britain Day, Germany is defeated in its air campaign, and thereafter postpones a planned naval invasion.
Americans heard, not that long ago, that our country was destined for a new “golden age.” Is this that promised time?:
Railroad fuel surcharges on U.S. grain shipments have more than doubled over the past year, rippling through the farm belt and raising transportation costs as many farmers also struggle with higher production costs.
The average fuel surcharge rate on grain shipments climbed to 48 cents a mile per rail car in the second week of September, up 153% compared with the weighted average a year earlier, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. Railroads use surcharges to recover most of what they have paid for fuel and combine them with long-haul freight rates.
With higher per-mile rates, surcharges accounted for 11% of total rail transportation costs for shipping corn and soybeans, compared with 5% a year ago, according to the USDA’s Sept. 10 report.
Forthcomingtopics (in no particular order): A New Ethics Ordinance, Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.
Monday in Whitewater will be variably cloudy with a high of 71. Sunrise is 6:33 and sunset is 7:06 for 12 hours 33 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 12.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Plan and Architectural Review Commission meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1994, the remainder of the Major League Baseball season is canceled because of a strike.
A plain proposition: Government, whether of elected or appointed officials, is made legitimate through free, fair, and accessible elections. Whitewater should not — indeed must not — reduce the number of its polling places.
(For a moment, one might be forgiven for wondering about the change between months: Is what the community believed it heard and read in August really what the community heard and read in August? The answer is yes. The inversion of goals from August to September works momentarily like an expression derived from the title of a 1944 MGM film.)
The September change, at least, is a notable improvement over the August memo (as the September memo does not propose to reduce any polling places through so-called ‘consolidation’). The August memo’s proposal was, in fact, a reduction in the total number of polling places, however disingenuously it may have been described. Consolidation meant closure.
As this libertarian blogger wrote in August, full consideration of an election proposal would encompass both the municipal administration’s practical proposal and its legal implications (including state and federal law). Upon reading the city’s August election memo — a proposal provocative, objectionable, and utterly needless — it was prudent to outline and draft (but not publish) a full assessment on these topics. Now, too, only a part of that consideration is yet necessary (and somewhat less today than even in August as the proposal is narrower).
The Changed Staff Recommendation. The August staff recommendation would have closed the campus polling location for spring primaries and spring general elections in odd-numbered years. That proposal would have abrogated the well-considered Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City of Whitewater and the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. The September proposal acknowledges that the campus elections required by the MOU are not being changed. This is not a modification of the August proposal. It is, instead, a wholly different proposal. It’s far better than last month’s.
The proper practice would be for this city’s council to state on the record that the proposed closures in odd-numbered years have been formally and effectively withdrawn. No resident should have to guess an implicit or implied municipal change of course. Without that clear statement, the August 4 proposal remains formally unresolved while the September memorandum changes the question.
AConcise Legal Assessment. The September staff memo acknowledges what the August staff memo did not: that a location change for a city polling place will require a public hearing before the Whitewater Common Council. SeeSept. 2026 Polling Location Memo 2 (“polling-place location may not be discontinued without governing-body approval after a public hearing at which the public may provide testimony”). See also FREE WHITEWATER, Preliminary Remarks Against the Proposed Discontinuation of the UW–Whitewater Polling Place in Odd-Numbered Years, August 4, 2026 (“Approval must come after a public hearing. The hearing must afford the public an opportunity to present testimony. The testimony must concern the proposed discontinuation, not municipal business in general. The August 4 packet labels Item 19 as a mere agenda item — the material provided does not identify it as the statutory public hearing”).
There’s a portion of the September memo that points toward a sound practice for the city going forward: “The timing and form of any Council action should therefore be coordinated with the City Attorney and the election calendar.” SeeSept. 2026 Polling Location Memo 2. Yes, and yes again — doing so will help vet proposals.
Threshold Practical Considerations. What matters most? Voter access — not municipal convenience — matters most. Government serves its electorate; the electorate does not serve the government.
Whitewater already uses one polling place for August elections (as there is no campus polling place at that time under the governing MOU). The issue for Whitewater in the selection of a polling place is not, therefore, ‘centralization.’ Whitewater’s August polling place is already centralized at the Armory. The issue is whether to keep that polling place centralized at the Armory or centralized elsewhere through relocation.
As the August polling place is now at the Armory, that location should reasonably be treated as the default against which other options (the Starin Community Building or the Whitewater Public Library) are judged. Do those other locations offer a comparative advantage? There are many residents who should have a chance to offer their insights. This should be a decision made only after community input. There’s no compelling reason to rush this decision. None.
Assorted Oddities of the City’s New September Memorandum. There are assorted oddities in the September memorandum.
The table in the memo lists an August 16, 2022 Partisan Primary. Our state’s August Partisan Primary in 2022 was on August 9, 2022.
The turnout figures for August 11, 2026 do not add up in the memo. SeeSept. 2026 Polling Location Memo 1. The ‘known in-person turnout’ is listed as 975, and the absentee vote as 579, for a total of 1,558. The sum of 975 and 579 should be 1,554. The turnout figures for ‘August 16, 2022’ (actually August 9) also do not add up in the memo. See Sept. 2026 Polling Location Memo 1. The ‘known in-person turnout’ is listed as 945, and the absentee vote as 583, for a total of 1,524. The sum of 945 and 583 should be 1,528. (By contrast, the numbers for August 13, 2024 add correctly: ‘known in-person turnout’ is listed as 1,196, and the absentee vote as 634, for a total of 1,830.)
I’m sure there is a reason, but there is no explanation in the memo’s main text or in a footnote.
The September memorandum is not a justification for the August proposal. It is a retreat from that proposal and poses a different question. The Whitewater Common Council itself (not simply a staff memo) should acknowledge that change, ensure that there will be no reduction in spring polling places through directions given to staff, and build a full public record before replacing the August polling place now serving the city.
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Forthcomingtopics (in no particular order): A New Ethics Ordinance, Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.
Scientists using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have discovered 84 mysterious “hypersoft X-ray sources.” These strange objects could help solve long-standing mysteries in astrophysics.
Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 67. Sunrise is 6:32 and sunset is 7:08 for 12 hours 36 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 6.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
This libertarian blogger has posted twice previously on the BECI power line. SeeOpposing the Routing of the BECI 765-kV Transmission Line and Sugar Creek Stands Tall. This power line, unlike a recent solar power development in the area, is an expropriation from private property owners. (The solar power development represents a series of freely contracted agreements between private landowners and the developer for the placement of solar panels on farmers’ own land. The BECI power line is an imposed, forced acquisition of private landowners’ property for the developer’s ownership. A proposal like this is, or at least should be, presumptively objectionable in a society that understands the importance of private ownership as both a right and also as a source of overall economic well-being.)
In the latest sign that a controversial high-voltage transmission line planned for Wisconsin has become a political touchstone, both candidates to serve as Wisconsin governor say they oppose it.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Crowley announced his opposition in a Sept. 10 press release. Republican candidate Tom Tiffany has told voters across the state that he’s opposed to the project, a spokesperson said.
The BECI project, a proposed 765-kilovolt power line, would stretch from western Wisconsin to the Illinois state line in Walworth County. Despite the developers’ position that it is vital for a reliable electric grid and a smooth transition to clean energy, individual landowners and communities along the line have mounted intense backlash to what they view as an unnecessary disturbance of the state’s Driftless region, primarily intended to serve data centers.
The governor of Wisconsin, along with the state Senate, appoints commissioners to the Public Service Commission, who will ultimately approve or deny proposed power line projects like this one. The current commissioners, appointed by Gov. Tony Evers, are serving six-year terms that will end in 2030.
In Crowley’s Sept. 10 statement, he said Wisconsin’s clean energy future “cannot come at the expense of our local communities or the Driftless region as a whole.”
Tiffany in an emailed statement said Wisconsin “should not become a web of massive transmission lines crisscrossing our farmland because politicians failed to build reliable power right here at home.”
These announcements are good news for those of us sensibly opposed to the project. They are not, however, the end of this project. (The opposition of major candidates will not, notably, immediately affect membership on the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, as most commissioners have years left on their terms.)
Two points come to mind. First, these candidates took the positions that they did in response to Wisconsinites’ expressed concerns. Governments and politicians now declaring against the project did not create popular opinion — they are responding to it.
Second, there are those in local governments near and far who may be advising that a deal should be made with the BECI developer, as the project is inevitable. That’s advice deserving only rejection. This can be stopped (and, even if not stopped, then crafted satisfactorily later only through resolute opposition now). Those talking about dealing now, compromising now, misunderstand the degree of opposition and what that opposition can accomplish. Indeed, opposition has already accomplished much, despite the rushed and duplicitous efforts of the developer. (Anyone thinking that the developer’s own focus group meetings in August were anything other than a contrived effort at considering residents’ views probably fell off a turnip truck yesterday.)
So along comes this developer like a python, looking for something to eat. Those who approach that reptile incautiously and innocently will only offer themselves as a meal.
By contrast, those who see this power line project for what it is — a developer’s rapacious taking of ordinary people’s private property for its own corporate gain — will make themselves like a porcupine, difficult to swallow and not worth the effort.
The best position against BECI is resolute opposition. Momentum is with those who oppose. There’s no reason whatever to relent now.
Forthcomingtopics (in no particular order): Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), Steps for a Public Interest Campaign, and A New Ethics Ordinance.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 6:31 and sunset is 7:09 for 12 hours 38 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1958, Jack Kilby demonstrates the first working integrated circuit while employed at Texas Instruments. (Kilby later won the 2000 Nobel Prize in physics for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit.)
Our time has seen countless conspiracy theories, not least among them the false claims about the result of the 2020 presidential election. On the campaign trail this fall, voters have a chance to meet one of the most committed of the 2020 election denialists, who now concedes — six years later! — that, in fact, Joe Biden did win that presidential election:
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Wisconsin Republican running for governor, moved to reverse Democrat Joe Biden’s win over Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Dec. 10, 2020: Signed a legal brief supporting Texas’ U.S. Supreme Court bid to overturn the results in Wisconsin and three other battleground states that backed Biden.
Jan. 5, 2021: Announced plans to vote against certifying the Electoral College results, claiming hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin votes were cast illegally, and later said he would have voted against certifying Wisconsin’s election results.
Jan. 6, 2021: Voted to object to counting electoral votes in Pennsylvania and Arizona, which supported Biden.
May 18, 2026: Backed an FBI probe of Wisconsin’s 2020 election.
August 2026: Said he didn’t regret voting against certifying the election.
Sept. 4, 2026: Told Wisconsin Watch that Biden won but he still welcomes law enforcement investigations into Wisconsin’s 2020 election.
Worry not for Rep. Tiffany, as he has replaced his absurd election denialism with a new absurdity: he somehow believes that Donald Trump might truly make good on a promise to give each American $5,000 if the GOP retains both chambers of Congress. Catherine Rampell of The Bulwark illustrates nicely how unreliable Trump’s promise is:
Here is a partial list of times he’s teased checks from the government since retaking office:
$5,000 stimulus checks via a “DOGE dividend” (February 2025)
When Tiffany tires of his latest confidence in a Trump dividend, he’ll still have flat Earth, QAnon, and chemtrails claims to embrace.
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Forthcomingtopics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), A New Ethics Ordinance, and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.
Wile E. Coyote’s actions speak more bombastically than words in this scene from “Coyote vs. Acme.”
After being the victim of countless anvils, boulders, dynamite sticks and faulty Acme products, Coyote is fed up. He goes searching for representation and finds a barely qualified personal injury attorney named Kevin Avery (Will Forte). Coyote has an expressive (and ultimately explosive) exchange with Kevin in his office.
Narrating the scene, the director Dave Green discussed how he and his team put it all together. “The execution of the scene,” he said, “really begins in prep in the storyboard process.” Green’s story artists, using the script, would sketch out how Wile E. might look and respond in the scene, creating a sense of his emotional arc.
Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:30 and sunset is 7:11 for 12 hours 41 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 2001, nineteen members of al-Qaeda execute the September 11 attacks, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks that killed 2,977 people using four hijacked aircraft. Two aircraft crash into the World Trade Center in New York City, a third crashes into The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and a fourth crashes into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Prices for a wide swath of goods and services continued to climb in August, according to a report Friday that raises the specter of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike next week.
The consumer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.4% for the month, putting the 12-month increase at 3.4%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Both readings were in line with the Dow Jones consensus.
However, stripping out volatile food and energy prices, core CPI posted a 0.3% monthly gain, or 0.1 percentage point higher than forecast. The core annual rate came in at 2.4%, in line with the estimate.
[…]
Energy propelled the headline number higher, as gasoline prices jumped 3.9%, accounting for more than one-third of the index’s gain. The energy index broadly rose 2.1% amid pressure from escalating tensions in the Middle East and was up 16.3% from a year ago.
Food prices edged 0.1% higher as food at home costs held flat. The food index accelerated 2.7% annually.
Another significant factor was a 0.3% climb in shelter costs, which had moderated over the prior two months. Transportation services saw a 0.5% increase. Used cars and trucks rose 0.4% and new vehicle prices were up 0.3%, part of what appeared to be broad-based gains for the index.
Forthcomingtopics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), A New Ethics Ordinance, and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.
Sadly, North America never had its own true cheetah. The American cheetah, long since extinct, was closer to an American puma:
With their slender bodies and long front legs, Miracinonyx trumani—often nicknamed the “American cheetah”—was long thought to be a North American analog of the African big cat. But in a new study published in the journal Current Biology, researchers reveal that the extinct cat was more closely related to pumas. Some populations living near the Arctic preyed almost exclusively on fish, challenging the long-held assumption that these “cheetahs” chased fast-running prey, such as pronghorns.
[…]
However, in recent years, increasing evidence has suggested that M. trumani may not have been as cheetah-like as its appearance suggests. To delve deeper, Cassatt-Johnstone and her team sequenced the most complete M. trumani ancient DNA data set to date from four specimens, one from Wyoming and three from Canada’s Yukon Territory. The Yukon samples were previously thought to be a different species, but the team confirmed that they belong to M. trumani, extending the known range of M. trumani more than 20 degrees of latitude (more than 1,400 miles) farther north than previously known.
[…]
The team found that despite being discovered in different locations and having lived hundreds of years apart, the Yukon M. trumani individuals all showed signals indicating that they preyed almost exclusively on fish. The fossils’ nitrogen profiles were similar to those observed in fish-specialist orcas and sea wolves living along the coast of British Columbia, which eat mainly marine animals. In contrast, the M. trumani in Wyoming had the nitrogen markers of a terrestrial predator that mostly eats herbivores, similar to lions.
Thursday in Whitewater will be increasingly sunny with a high of 77. Sunrise is 6:29 and sunset is 7:13 for 12 hours 44 minutes of daylight. The moon will be new this evening with none of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1846, Elias Howe is granted a patent for the sewing machine.
A federal and state election draws near. There is a reasonable concern that a movement that stormed the United States Capitol to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power will seek new ways to prevent another peaceful transfer of federal power. There are two principal ways to achieve this aim: by interfering with lawful voting or by contesting the lawful results. Of the latter — ways to contest votes lawfully cast — Evan Gorelick lists four main lines of attack:
Trump is the only president in U.S. history to try overturning an election. His ongoing assertion that elections are “rigged” creates a potential pretext for officials — a growing number of whom back the president’s election denialism, my colleagues Nick Corasaniti and Alexandra Berzon report — to question the outcome of this year’s midterms. If Democrats win enough seats to retake one or both chambers of Congress, then officials could:
Claim they saw polling-site irregularities. The Justice Department has been deploying election monitors this primary season. It could do the same in November. (Trump has claimed that loads of undocumented immigrants vote, for instance, even though a database managed by the conservative Heritage Foundation identifies only about 100 cases of noncitizen voting over the last quarter century, or roughly two instances per U.S. state.)
Claim voting machines lie. The president says they are “extremely exposed to attack” and has spread baseless allegations that they once “deleted” millions of votes. Trump told The Times he regretted not seizing voting machines after the 2020 election, and his administration has explored bringing criminal charges against election officials whom it believes did not sufficiently safeguard their computer systems. (Cyber experts have identified security flaws, but there’s no evidence they have ever been exploited to flip election results.)
Claim there was foreign interference. Trump often complains, falsely, that China sabotaged him in 2020. This summer, he made a prime-time speech resurfacing that exaggerated narrative. There’s a grain of truth: Beijing collected American voter data. But such data is publicly available and often purchased by domestic political campaigns. On the other hand, Russian meddling might have helped Trump in 2016.
Refuse to certify the results, or sue to challenge them. The Justice Department could unleash a torrent of post-election litigation. The agency has already demanded that states turn over voters’ confidential Social Security and drivers’ license data. Dozens of states have resisted, and the Justice Department sued them. It has lost every case so far. Still, election officials and Democrats worry the battle over voting records may be used to discredit or spread disinformation about midterm results. (Read The Times’s profile of the gladiatorial Trump official leading these efforts.)
It is not possible for a people to support a government that either burdens an election or rejects election results. This principle applies nationally, statewide, and locally. In this way, all places, whether big or small, are bound together in defense of a right they hold in common.
There are no exceptions, nor could there be.
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Forthcomingtopics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), A New Ethics Ordinance, and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.
The European climate service Copernicus said the Earth just sweltered through its hottest month on record in August. Scientists said the heat surge is mostly due to human-caused climate change, with help from a strong El Nino.
