The 53rd edition of Wisconsin Farm Technology Days has come and gone. The hundreds of Sheboygan County volunteers who worked for nearly four years to plan, produce and carry out this big event did it well. They can be most proud.
A Badger Poll survey released today found that women favor stem cell research slightly more than men, Democrats are more in favor of it than Republicans, and older respondents back it more than younger ones.
A new Badger Poll released Wednesday by the UW Survey Center found that, overall, Wisconsinties generally approve of stem cell research.
President Bush, in a veto Wednesday that was the first of his presidency, rebuffed legislation on human embryonic stem cell research that was passed by the Senate a day earlier and by the House more than a year ago.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=474319
President Bush, in a veto Wednesday that was the first of his presidency, rebuffed legislation on human embryonic stem cell research that was passed by the Senate a day earlier and by the House more than a year ago.
Overall approval ratings for President Bush in Wisconsin have slipped in recent months, and nearly half of respondents believe he is doing a poor job handling foreign affairs, the economy and problems at home, according to a poll released today.
http://www.jsonline.com/watch/?watch=22&date=7/18/2006&id=8724
Overall approval ratings for President Bush in Wisconsin have slipped in recent months, and nearly half of respondents believe he is doing a poor job handling foreign affairs, the economy and problems at home, according to the Badger Poll released today.
The University of Wisconsin Survey Center found that 5% of those polled rated the president’s overall job performance as excellent, 22% as good, 27% as fair, and 45% as poor.
Nearly half of the respondents in a state poll released Tuesday believe George Bush is doing a poor job as president.
The University of Wisconsin Survey Center found that 5 percent of those polled rated the president’s overall job performance as excellent, 22 percent as good, 27 percent as fair and 45 percent as poor.
Slightly more than half of the respondents in a new poll support banning gay marriage and bringing back the death penalty in Wisconsin.
The University of Wisconsin Survey Center found about 52 percent of those surveyed favored an amendment to the state constitution prohibiting gay marriage, while nearly 44 percent opposed it.
A majority of Wisconsin residents support a proposed state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and any substantially similar legal status, according to a poll released Monday. The poll was conducted by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Washington, D.C. – With the opening of a U.S. Senate debate on stem cell policy just hours away, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle again urged Senators to overturn President Bush’s ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
Governor Doyle’s TV Ad portion of his re-election campaign starts July 18 and his support for stem cell research will be a centerpiece of his message.
His opponent, Republican Congressman Mark Green has already fired back, saying he supports the research, within reason.
In 1967, Judy Haag took an entry-level state job and started living the Dane County dream of government service. Decades later, she helped the state automate and eliminate the very clerk’s job she was first hired to fill – and some 80 more just like it.
Haag’s nearly 40-year career shows both the opportunity that government jobs can offer and the way that those jobs – the core of this region’s economy – are no longer the force they once were.
The usual UW bashers in the state Legislature certainly provide some good copy for this newspaper and others.
The story line typically goes like this: Outraged lawmaker castigates state university again for (fill in the blank – insufficient patriotism, wasteful spending, mismanagement or wildly unconventional thought).
The raging lawmaker gets to grab headlines and score cheap political points. The University of Wisconsin System suffers an excessive spanking and tries to strike back.
All the while, the reputation of the entire state of Wisconsin is trashed.
The war of words over a controversial UW lecturer escalated today when a Madison legislator called a fellow legislator “ineffective and useless” for condemning UW’s decision to allow the lecturer to keep his position.
(MADISON) The State Assembly has decided not to vote on a measure calling for the dismissal of a controversial University of Wisconsin instructor.
The war of words over a controversial UW lecturer escalated today when a Madison legislator called a fellow legislator “ineffective and useless” for condemning UW’s decision to allow the lecturer to keep his position.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, told The Capital Times today that Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, was way off base in his condemnation of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s decision to allow Kevin Barrett to teach an introductory course on Islam.
Saying the university needs to “see the light” or face retaliatory budget cuts, state Rep. Steve Nass on Wednesday introduced a resolution demanding UW-Madison fire a part- time lecturer who says the 2001 terrorist attacks were orchestrated by the U.S. government.
Rep. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) had wanted a vote on the resolution condemning the theories of the UW-Madison instructor, Kevin Barrett, about Sept. 11 and criticizing UW-Madison’s decision to allow Barrett to teach a course on Islam at the university this fall. UW-Madison said Monday, after reviewing Barrett’s records and course plans, that he will be allowed to teach the course.
Members of the Legislature didn’t want to delve into a hot political issue on a day when it was supposed to be in session on limited business, said Majority Leader Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem). [This material is at the end of a story about state labor contracts]
Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, is sponsoring a resolution in the Assembly calling for the University of Wisconsin-Madison to fire a controversial lecturer.
The resolution condemns Kevin Barrett’s theory that the United States was behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and chides Provost Patrick Farrell for allowing Barrett to teach his course on Islam this fall.
Nass will attempt to introduce the resolution today. The Assembly is convening today for a limited business session to approve state employee contracts.
The loss of classical music to news has generated the most disapproval among listeners of Wisconsin Public Radio, which recently made numerous changes to its program schedule, said Phil Corriveau, the director of the statewide network with 27 stations.
This eight-day field trip was for teachers, nearly 30 of them from Arena to Waukesha, and the destination was Wisconsin, more than 1,000 miles of it.
The itinerary was a study of geology, culture, history and geography. Now each participant will take her impressions and knowledge into classrooms, kindergarten to adult special ed.
(The “Here at Home Tour” was subsidized by a two-year grant from the Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment. The Wisconsin Arts Board and University of Wisconsin Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures developed the program.)
A word to the outraged: Huffing and puffing won’t make the 9-11 “revisionists” go away; it just gives them more publicity. Calm down, ignore them and let cranks be cranks.
And don’t fire them unless they’re truly unqualified for their jobs. It just confirms their paranoia.
Controversial though it is, the decision by UW-Madison to let an instructor who believes the 9/11 terrorist attacks were orchestrated by our own government fits within the most conservative traditions of the university.
Kevin Barrett will teach a course on Islam at the school. He apparently believes the twin towers of the World Trade Center were blown up by U.S. government operatives in order to provoke war in the Middle East. He said as much during a radio interview.
Quoted: Katherine Cramer Walsh and Ken Mayer, UW-Madison political science professors.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced Monday that it would keep Kevin Barrett as a part-time lecturer and allow him to teach a controversial theory on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in spite of political pressure to dismiss him.
There’s so much information about alleged myths about 9-11 out there that it’s ridiculous not to expect today’s college students to investigate some of this stuff on their own.
As a part-time lecturer at UW-Milwaukee, I support the right of any teacher to conduct his class as he feels fit, within university standards.
We survived visits by the fiery Ward Churchill, who by the way is currently appealing a decision by his school to fire him. The UW System can certainly survive the teachings of Kevin Barrett. With all this publicity, his students will find themselves in a great position to make up their own minds.
That is what education is supposed to be about, right?
A UW-Madison instructor under fire for his views on the Sept. 11 attacks sent a sarcastic letter to Gov. Jim Doyle this week, a spokesman for the governor said Friday.
Doyle’s office has forwarded the July 5 letter from Kevin Barrett to UW-Madison Provost Patrick Farrell, who is reviewing whether Barrett should be allowed to teach a course on Islam this fall, said Doyle spokesman Matt Canter.
A few years ago, the Joint Finance Committee voted to strip $25 million out of the University of Wisconsin System. Chancellors screamed bloody murder. Students would hurt. Education would suffer.
A decision by the University of Wisconsin System to abandon a pricey payroll system draws criticism from one state lawmaker. UW officials have decided to drop the implementation of a $26 million payroll and benefits system, after nearly five years of development.
Madison, Wis. – The decision by University of Wisconsin System to discontinue implementation of a system-wide payroll and benefit system with Lawson Software, and go with Oracle/PeopleSoft payroll and benefit software, came as no surprise.
The University of Wisconsin System has decided to ditch a computer payroll system that it had spent about $26-million trying to implement, after running into numerous problems. Officials will give Oracle a try instead.
MADISON, Wis. — A state lawmaker has called the University of Wisconsin System’s scrapping of a big computer project a “$26 million boondoggle.”
The UW’s multi-million dollar system, put in place to manage payroll and benefits, is no more.
The University of Wisconsin System on Wednesday announced its decision to scrap a project to implement a new computer program to manage its payroll and benefits for employees after already spending $26 million on the effort.
MADISON – The University of Wisconsin System on Wednesday announced its decision to scrap a project to implement a new computer program to manage its payroll and benefits for employees after already spending $26 million on the effort.
For being as hands-off on state contracts as he says he was, former Administration Secretary Marc Marotta’s fingerprints are all over a $68.7 million building deal near the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Newly disclosed state records show that Marotta met with officials for J. P. Cullen & Sons in October 2003 to hear them gripe that a competitor should not have tentatively won the huge job of converting the Kenilworth Building near UWM into student housing, classrooms and retail stores.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison lecturer should have the right to speak in class about his theory that the U.S. government was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, several students and staffers said in spot interviews this morning.
The interviews also revealed a surprising level of skepticism about the government.
Gov. Jim Doyle on Thursday defended his former top aide’s handling of a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee building project, citing Republican comments from a day earlier to bolster his case.
Dear Editor: Although the state of Wisconsin’s State Employee Group Health Program and its local government program may be setting new records for cost savings, it also stands out as one that practices government-sanctioned discrimination.
While the private sector, as well as two of Madison’s three hospitals, has adopted employee health insurance programs that include domestic partners of their employees, the state has dug in its heels.
A lawyer employed by the state is under investigation for using his work e-mail to urge hundreds of co-workers to oppose the death penalty in an advisory referendum that is on the November election ballot, an agency official said.
Most Wisconsin residents do not want race to be considered in University of Wisconsin System admissions, according to a statewide survey by the conservative-oriented Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.
According to the survey, to be released today, 65% of respondents opposed the consideration of race, 26% favored it, while 9% had no opinion or did not answer the question.
….Preserving a rural character in Wisconsin depends in part on preserving a viable and sustainable agriculture farms and forestry and the associated rural communities that service such enterprises. But maintaining our agricultural base is not at all assured.
(Brent McCown is a professor of horticulture at UW-Madison and directs a research/outreach center for farming and food systems. He was co-chair of the first Future of Farming Forum.)
MILWAUKEE (AP) – A company executive said Sunday he thinks he and his partners got passed over for a state contract to develop new student housing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee because they didn’t have political connections to Gov. Jim Doyle.
Ken Nelson, president of a company that is a partner in two companies that tried for the contract awarded in 2004, said they filed a civil lawsuit a year ago against the state Department of Administration seeking damages, which he estimated at $5 million.
The co-chairwoman of a state Senate panel on health care reform says the insurance system that serves 230,000 state and local government employees, retirees and their beneficiaries is blazing a path toward more efficient and less costly health care.
“Wisconsin has a shining example” to offer, said Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills. “The state changed to a three-tier insurance system and developed a prescription initiative that is very strong. This is the best in the country, and other states are looking at it.”
Dear Editor: As a newcomer to Wisconsin in 1997, I had no idea of what the “Wisconsin Idea” meant. In 2006, I now know exactly what it means, having experienced it firsthand.
To me, it means having a world class land grant university in Wisconsin where great minds develop great ideas and these are applied to advance the economic and social condition of our citizens.
….In every age, great ideas are the keys to progress. The Wisconsin Idea is how we get from theory to results. How can we afford not to support this extraordinary public university at a time when hugely complex problems seem overwhelming, and great ideas are needed more than ever?
John A. Noreika, executive director, Oakwood Lutheran Homes, Madison
Responding to concerns from University of Wisconsin campuses and local businesses, the Department of Administration is changing course to allow state employees to make their own decisions about where to buy hardware items below $100.
The decision means employees at UW campuses and state agencies can buy many essential maintenance and repair items from local businesses instead of through a statewide contract that forced them to pay more in some cases.
Marc Marotta was emphatic Wednesday, telling legislators poking in the Adelman Travel contract scandal that when he ran the Department of Administration, he never – ever – got involved in awarding contracts once the bidding process began.
But an irate vendor, using newly discovered e-mails, is arguing in an Ozaukee County lawsuit that the long arm of Marotta reached into the bidding process for a $55 million-plus building deal awarded by the state in 2004, kicking it to a competitor.
Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Republican gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Mark Green called today for the creation of a special investigator to root out cases of corruption, waste and fraud in state government.
At a press conference in Madison this morning, the Green Bay Republican said that if he’s elected governor, he would ask lawmakers to establish an Office of Inspector General to act as a “pit bull” in such cases.
A state purchasing specialist criticized for poor performance was given a nearly $5,000 raise and a larger pension and was allowed to take three months of vacation in exchange for retiring last year, according to records released this week.
The Department of Administration’s resignation agreement with Mary Ann Woodke is coming to light because the deal played a key role in the defense of her boss, Georgia Thompson, at a trial earlier this month on charges Thompson steered a state contract to a donor of Gov. Jim Doyle.
MADISON, Wis. – A felon on probation for sexual assault of a child and armed robbery was hired as a peer tutor at Chippewa Valley Technical College.
A registered sex offender convicted of indecency with a child is a faculty member teaching sociology at Northcentral Technical College. And a faculty member at Moraine Park Technical College was hired despite a conviction for second-degree sexual assault.
A state audit of the Wisconsin Technical College System has found that 15 felons are employed by colleges in the system – four of them at Madison Area Technical College.
The auditors searched only for those who were convicted of felonies and remain under supervision, not those who have completed sentences.
There will be 10 hours less per week of classical music, including no more “Symphony at Six” over dinner and one hour less each weekday of “Morning Classics.”
But there will be many more hours of public radio news, including an extra hour of “Morning Edition” each weekday morning, and more talk-radio-like shows.
Some changes may provoke yelps from fans of two National Public Radio stars.
….(Jerry) Yelk himself has worked some 1,500 cases. He has a success rate in excess of 90 percent and holds what he believes is the world record for the oldest successful tracking operation.
….He’s retired, kind of, from tracking, though he still gets calls from all over the country and will take the occasional job. Dane County authorities contacted him in spring 2004 when Audrey Seiler was missing. “Turned it down,” Yelk said. “It smelled wrong right from the start.”
By Doug Moe
….Must-Carry Station? Must See TV?
We’ll see, because there is some question about whether or not people locally will be able to watch the Big Ten Channel — unless you’re a subscriber to DirecTV’s “Total Choice” package, which numbers roughly 15.4 million homes nationally.
DirecTV is already on board; representing a good start for the Big Ten, which has signed a 20-year contract with Fox Cable Networks to launch the Big Ten Channel, a bold 24/7 proposition and enterprise.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has expanded a program that guarantees admission to qualified transfer students from state technical colleges. (Final item)
MILWAUKEE – The University of Wisconsin-Madison has expanded a program that guarantees admission to qualified transfer students from state technical colleges.
Students at Milwaukee Area Technical College who complete 54 credits in specified areas and earn a 3.0 grade-point average will be guaranteed admission to UW-Madison when they apply as transfer students, officials from both schools announced Wednesday.
Former Administration Secretary Marc Marotta said today that he played no role in determining who would get a lucrative travel contract that ultimately went to one of Gov. Jim Doyle’s major campaign donors.
Speaking before the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee, Marotta acknowledged that he did recommend that travel services be included as a possible target for cost savings as part of a broader effort to balance the state’s budget when he and Doyle took office in 2003.
