Asian Carp update: since 2003(previously), the inexorable advance of Asian Carp up the Mississippi delta has brought them to within 6 miles of Lake Michigan. These invasive "100-pound Zebra Mussels" suck rivers clean and starve native fish. Asian Carp are now 97% of the fish biomass in the Mississippi delta. The "electric fence" across the canal didn't stop them. The poisoning of the canal won't stop them. Closing the Chicago sewage canal locks is the only way to be sure. But the Army Corps of Engineers have the jurisdiction. Feel safe? [more inside]
posted by anthill on Dec 3, 2009 - 66 comments

Charles Van Schaick was a photographer in Black River Falls, Wisconsin in the late 19th and early 20th Century. His work was made famous by Michael Lesy in the book Wisconsin Death Trip in which the photographs were juxtaposed with local newsreports of murder, suicide, disease, insanity, animal mutilation and other calamities plus the occasional non-morbid event. Flickr set of photos used in Wisconsin Death Trip. Some of the texts from Wisconsin Death Trip. Robert Birnbaum interviews Michael Lesy about Wisconsin Death Trip and other things. Over 2500 photographs by Charles Van Schaick owned by The Wisconsin Historical Society. [Warning: Some of the photographs are of deceased infants]
posted by Kattullus on Nov 15, 2009 - 20 comments

"If you told me we would be going through a book challenge of this nature, I'd think, 'Never in a million years.' " [more inside]
posted by sredefer on Jul 22, 2009 - 110 comments

The town of Shawano, WI claims a local group with a history of controversy called the Samanta Roy Institute of Science & Technology (SIST) profiled in this WSAW TV investigative series (part 1, part 2, part 3 & part 4) is a murderous cult that tried to hire a hitman to assassinate 60 prominent citizens including the mayor, city administrator, city treasurer, city attorney, police chief, judges, investigators & fire commissioners. SIST returns the favor & claims it's the mayor who's running a cult (part 1, part 2 & more), calling her the Minister of Propaganda. As a CBS investigative team found out, things are tense in this sleepy town. The FBI says it's keeping an eye on the situation.
posted by scalefree on Dec 18, 2008 - 28 comments

"We're not selling here -- we're hunting!" The young man or woman at the mall kiosk who grabs your shoulder and says "Can I have twenty seconds of your time to show you something amazing?" might be a young Israeli saving up for a pre-army jaunt to Asia or South America. The U.S. kiosk trade has become popular enough in Israel to inspire a folk-rock song by musician and kiosk veteran Rami Feinstein. The Wall Street Journal offers a generally admiring profile of the Israeli "natural-born closers." The Capital Times, in Madison, WI, wishes they'd buzz off.
posted by escabeche on Dec 3, 2008 - 115 comments

The Attorney General of Wisconsin, JB Van Hollen, is suing the state Elections Board to remove from voting rolls all voters whose registered names & addresses don't match the records at the Department of Transportation. [more inside]
posted by echo target on Sep 11, 2008 - 103 comments

The Mediocre Samaritan is a bittersweetly funny film fictionalization of an event that took place in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin on February 21, 2007. Produced by J. Elvis Weinstein of MST3K, Stinkburger Inc. and Cinematic Titanic fame. (Event detailed previously on Metafilter. Also, NSFW for a couple seconds of pasty, naked male butt and tactfully censored footage of Casa de Culo.)
posted by cog_nate on May 7, 2008 - 14 comments

Next time you thump an animal on the highway, don't just drive on like nothing happened. Stop, get out of your car, and measure the carcass for entry into the Roadkill Record Book Club. [more inside]
posted by Kibbutz on Apr 29, 2008 - 22 comments

Dr Evermor's Art Park featuring the world's largest scrap metal sculpture, the Forevertron, is one of the most impressive metalwork collections I've ever seen. Great write up on the place over at Neatorama with tons of pix.
posted by jonson on Sep 11, 2007 - 15 comments

"Honor Your Process," read some of the signs held by protesters in a recent school board meeting here in sunny Madison, Wisconsin. They were protesting naming a new elementary school after General Vang Pao, Secret Army fighter during the Vietnam war, and ex-patriot of Laos after the Communist government took over in 1975. Amidst local Hmong leaders' charges of racism against the Hmong community (Wisconsin is no stranger to these charges, as Mefi featured here), protesters pointed to the recent arrest of Pao in California, charged with weapons trafficking to support a revolution against the government of Laos. The school board ended up agreeing with the protesters, and have returned to their original list of finalists for the elementary school's name.
posted by thanotopsis on Jun 20, 2007 - 27 comments

The partial veto , enshrined in the Wisconsin Constitution since 1930, gives the governor the power to veto only a portion of a bill passed by the legislature. Since then, governors, both Republican and Democratic, have gotten increasingly creative about its application -- vetoing the word "not" to reverse the meaning of a bill, vetoing digits out of numbers to reduce appropriations, even vetoing individual letters from words in order to create new text, Humument-style. (This last power, the so-called "Vanna White" veto, was removed by Constitutional amendment in 1990.) Another attempt to strip the governor of the partial veto has just failed. Doesn't it sound like fun to be governor of Wisconsin? Try it yourself.
posted by escabeche on Mar 12, 2007 - 33 comments

Tom Hignite wasn't content owning one of Wisconsin's most successful companies, Miracle Homes. The evangelical contracting magnate had a dream. He would be the Walt Disney(sound) of the 21st century. So he turned a portion of his 7,000 square foot house into a studio, hired a crew of veteran Disney and Warner Bros. animators, and proceeded to make a feature film QT starring his own creation, Miracle Mouse. This is the story of how it all went wrong.
posted by maryh on Dec 10, 2006 - 54 comments

... the eighth young man since 1997 was found dead in the Mississippi River in the La Crosse [Wisconsin] area on Monday.
posted by anjamu on Oct 2, 2006 - 37 comments

Gay Marriage Debate Turns Violent A violent brawl broke out on Tuesday during a discussion in a Wauwatosa restaurant over the proposed same-sex marriage referendum, and the incident was apparently caught on videotape. Video of the brawl here. 39 days until Wisconsin votes "No" on the civil unions and marriage ban.
posted by thefreek on Sep 29, 2006 - 84 comments

A case of Horlicks for 1,000 - 2,000 British Pounds (the lot description doesn't contains a mention of any actual Horlicks though). Horlicks has been around since 1883. Their early efforts at promotion included the invention of a condition they called 'Night Starvation'. As well as press, radio (they sponsored Dan Dare) and television advertising they also featured in the cinema at one time. These films, made by George Pál, are quite surreal. Although Horlicks seems to be made from the same ingredients as Maltesers, the company has pushed their product in India as making children "taller, stronger and sharper" - tying it in with the Superman Returns movie. Back home in England, Horlicks is made fun of despite the fact that it is one of the ingredients in a jolly nice self-saucing pudding.
posted by tellurian on Sep 24, 2006 - 40 comments

Necrophiles are rare (thank God!) enough, but to find three such people in one location is strange indeed. We'll never know if they would have actually gone through with it. They were however certainly making all the preparations.
posted by Tablecrumbs on Sep 6, 2006 - 114 comments

"Lawsonomy is the knowledge of Life and everything pertaining thereto." The collected works of Alfred Lawson - professional baseball player, aviation pioneer, economist, scientist, theologist, and philosopher - are available to all. [more inside]
posted by UKnowForKids on Jul 6, 2006 - 6 comments

Xanadu Home of the Future sits rotting in Kissimmee, Florida. It was built in the early 80s by Roy Mason and combined a unique architectural approach with an environment controlled by Commodore computers. Squatters were probably not part of this future plan. You can buy this visionary piece of futures past today or you could buy one in Sedona. However, be aware that the Gatlinburg and Wisconsin Xanadus were not preserved.
posted by PHINC on Jun 10, 2005 - 26 comments

Robot planes may make phone towers obsolete "...it's a "Stratellite", and its makers believe it will revolutionise the broadband and wireless industry; if it ever gets off the ground.

Wisconsin communications company Sanswire on Tuesday unveiled its almost-finished prototype of a hard-framed, unmanned airship designed to fly in the stratosphere 21km above the earth and send broadband and cellphone signals to an area the size of Texas."

This in my opinion is an example of truly innovative technology.
posted by jaydedx on Apr 13, 2005 - 25 comments

Ms. Wheelchair Wisconsin stripped of title for standing up. Candidates for the crown have to "mostly be seen in the public using their wheelchairs or scooters," said Judy Hoit, Ms. Wheelchair America's treasurer. "Otherwise you've got women who are in their wheelchairs all the time and they get offended if they see someone standing up. We can't have title holders out there walking when they're seen in the public." Reminds me of the joke of the kid who won the "Most Humble" award at his school, was given a badge, and then had it taken away from him when he put it on.
posted by billysumday on Apr 1, 2005 - 25 comments

Terry Ratzmann's Homepage. After reading some accounts of the Wisconsin church shooting, I noted he was into horticulture. A Google search turned up only four entries, one from his church, and three forum posts written by Terry himself about plants, which included his email address at "traven@execpc.com". I went old school, and formatted an URL in Unix style, trying his email name as a web directory and hit paydirt.
posted by tpoh.org on Mar 13, 2005 - 55 comments

The Green Party rejects Ralph Nader. On the second ballot at the Green Party nominating convention held today in Milwaukee, WI, David Cobb defeated Peter Camajo (Nader's running mate) for the Green Party nomination, thereby denying Nader automatic placement onto the ballot in 23 states.
posted by thewittyname on Jun 26, 2004 - 16 comments

Can a Pharmacist Refuse To Dispense Birth Control? "Neil Noesen, a relief pharmacist at the Kmart in Menomonie, Wis., was the only person on duty one day in 2002 when a woman came in to refill her prescription for the contraceptive Loestrin FE. According to a complaint filed by the Wisconsin department of regulation and licensing, Noesen refused because of his religious opposition to birth control. He also declined to transfer the prescription to a nearby pharmacy and refused once again when the woman returned to the store with police...."
posted by Postroad on Jun 1, 2004 - 102 comments

Clearly, kids trapped inside Pick-A-Toy machines is only the lastest example of weirdness As a recent Wisconsinite, I've noticed everyone from The Simpsons to The West Wing gets in a few easy swipes at the cheese state. But this is a nice (and new) collection of historical weirdness in Wisconsin. From images of Cow Chip Tossing to a Female Band Playing to Cows, this state clearly has some issues.
posted by rev- on Jan 13, 2004 - 7 comments

Expensive clowns. Some Wisconsin senators want to "save Milwaukee's Circus Parade by giving $1.5 million in tax dollars to the Baraboo-based Circus World Museum."
posted by Tubes on Dec 9, 2003 - 22 comments

The Random Wisconsin City Name Generator. Every state needs one!
posted by mimi on Nov 4, 2003 - 11 comments

Wisconsin strip club owner discovers art. A Milwaukee Common Council committee last week agreed to designate Club Paradise, a strip club in Walker's Point, as a "Center for the Visual and Performing Arts" based on the art collection displayed there. This would allow the club to admit underage customers.
posted by Durwood on Oct 14, 2003 - 9 comments

Wisconsin has picked its quarter design! Gov. Jim Doyle Tuesday overruled an advisory panel and told the U.S. Mint to put a cow, wheel of cheese and ear of corn on Wisconsin's commemorative quarter, despite fears that it won't reflect the state's cities or its rich ethnic heritage
posted by Durwood on Oct 1, 2003 - 34 comments

Wisconsin cheese names in jeopardy The European Union is trying to impose restrictions (a la champagne) on what you can call certain cheeses that are produced in locations other than their 'native' region. Is this purely an economic ploy, or is there some merit behind it?
posted by pizzasub on Sep 10, 2003 - 39 comments

Sex between teenagers is illegal in Wisconsin. "Sex between kids is not legal," said Assistant District Attorney Lori Kornblum, who is prosecuting the case. According to the law, "Whoever has sexual contact or sexual intercourse with a person who has not attained the age of 16 is guilty of a Class C felony." There is no mention of consent. The boy's attorney will argue that children's privacy rights include the right to make "important decisions."
posted by Durwood on Aug 21, 2003 - 92 comments

How the Grinch Stole Wisconsin's History? So, here in Wisconsin, the state government managed to screw up the economy so bad that its making historic budget cuts. Rather than take it lying down, anonymous members of the Historical Society have struck back via the Internet. Thus far, the rewriting of "the Grinch" into "How the Grinch Stole Who-story" is classic. Perfect for Friday.
posted by rev- on Mar 7, 2003 - 4 comments

76-year old Wisconsin man carded while buying non-alcoholic beer. Wish the article had more information, like whether or not the clerk refused to sell the goods to a senior citizen, or just asked to see some ID, but still. Shouldn't a little common sense come into play here? Do you blame the "old man" for getting upset in the first place, or the clerk for not bending "the rules," or the owner for the policy, or the lawyers for the law suits that engendered the policy, or prohibition for getting this country so worked about about alcohol and appropriate drinking ages in the first place? Me? I blame society.

And yes, yes, I know "newsfilter this" and "newsfilter that." But c'mon. It's Wisconsin. Appreciate the irony.
posted by RKB on Jan 21, 2003 - 60 comments

Caley Meals, is a sex columnist. What seperates her from the crowd of them, is that she is published in a college school newspaper. Jokingly, in her first column she states that, "I will try to keep the students of Madison with their heads in the right place: the gutter." She then goes on to cover imortant topics such as, how to work the college sex life around a roomie, the drunken bootie call, fornication with food, female domination and many others. Is it real journalism or only riding on pure shock value? "Writing about sex is about as interesting as talking about sex, which is to say it's not interesting at all compared to the real thing. But at least it can be a little naughty."
posted by Recockulous on Nov 26, 2002 - 38 comments

Wisconsin "loses" 2,900 sex offenders. It seems that the state of Wisconsin has "misplaced" approximately 2,900 of it's 9,000+ population of registered sex offenders. Apparently, they've moved within or out of the state without letting the state know. Jim Stingl of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel thinks we should all pitch in and help find those missing offenders, and offers some ways he's helping out already
posted by djspicerack on Oct 14, 2002 - 17 comments

"nearly 20" kids beat man to brain death with bats, shovels and boards Brutal stuff. One of the kids in custody is only 10 years old. The victim had "confronted them for throwing an egg at him and punched one teen in the mouth". They went and organized a mob, and returned, according to the Milwaukee Police. What do you do with a 10 year old murderer, anyway?
posted by BarneyFifesBullet on Sep 30, 2002 - 42 comments

Helder admits to mailbox bombings: "Helder admitted manufacturing eight pipe bombs in his apartment in Wisconsin," according to the affidavit. "Helder further admitted to assembling an additional 16 pipe bombs at a motel in Nebraska." I hope he gets thrown into a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
posted by Kevin Sanders on May 8, 2002 - 45 comments

"This is not about a team; this is about a territory." "If Americans can't light up the room during the next two weeks with a howl for a speedskater from small-town Wisconsin who lives in a mobile home and works at Home Depot and listens to the Dixie Chicks ... then when?"
posted by owillis on Feb 7, 2002 - 29 comments

One-man news org busts open local pension scam! Bruce Murphy's Milwaukee World website uncovered a story about improprieties in the county pension fund on October 10th of last year while the traditional outlets dawdled until January of this year. Kind of neat to know that all the solo journalism isn't all Matt Drudge "advances" from old media. (via medianews)
posted by owillis on Jan 17, 2002 - 5 comments

"Several months ago I wrote a letter to WisDOT requesting your agency consider recalling the vanity license plate IH8GOP that I noticed on a vehicle in the Columbus area. My reason for requesting the recall of this plate is that the message is obscene to those of us who are members of the Republican Party (GOP) and who subscribe to the conservative principles of the party. I never received a response to my letter..."

Political correctness, Hate Speech, Free Speech and the problem of vanity plates at Wisconsin's Department of Transportation.
posted by lagado on Jul 1, 2001 - 38 comments

What's 95 inches tall, purple, and stinks like rotten meat? Why, it's Amorphophallus titanum, the world's largest flower. One of them is about to bloom at the University of Wisconsin - Madison Department of Botany, and the link will take you to a webcam waiting for it to bloom. One bloomed at Kew Gardens in the UK a couple of years ago to much fanfare, and there are only a dozen or so "in captivity".
posted by briank on Jun 5, 2001 - 17 comments

Ask the rabbi...about storing your ammo. I love the total randomness of this, including the fact that it's all coming to you from Wisconsin, the Badger State.
posted by luser on May 9, 2001 - 8 comments

Oh hell, here we go again.... Mother faces 15 years and $10,000 for buying 13 year old condoms. Why must we be so stupid?
posted by baylink on Jan 16, 2001 - 58 comments

"In a case believed to be a first of its kind since the inception of the Wisconsin hate crimes law, three area young men have been charged with a hate crime for singling out a Christian." Found at obscurestore.com
posted by ericost on Jan 11, 2001 - 40 comments

Brothers, 74 and 80, could face up to 30 yrs for growing pot on a Wisconsin farm.
posted by skallas on Oct 3, 2000 - 11 comments