January 27, 2012

Eyes on Taiwan trade

Chen, Walker at Capitol PHOTO: WRN

Wisconsin is increasing its agricultural trade with Taiwan. That growing trade in two key agricultural commodities — corn and soybeans — was cemented by the goodwill visit of a Taiwanese trade delegation to Madison. Governor Scott Walker noted the trade through Wisconsin’s Great Lakes ports has been beneficial for both partners. “Taiwan is our number one export partner in corn, our number four export partner in soybeans,” said Walker. “We’d like to see that grow, and we’ve seen significant growth between 2009 and 2010.”

In fact, the head of the Taiwanese delegation, Doctor Bo-Ji Chen, said Taiwan increased imports of agriculture products from Wisconsin by more than forty percent last year — and noted there’s not a lot of land for agriculture in the island nation. “We have the second highest population density in the world, so we have not much land to grow corn and soybeans,” he said. “We have to get our feed sources through reliable partners.” [Read more...]

Dems okayed for mining committee

The membership of a committee tasked with reviewing Wisconsin’s existing mining laws has been finalized, and state Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller has gotten his way on the composition of the panel. Miller had tapped Democrats Bob Jauch, Jon Erpenbach and Tim Carpenter to serve with four Republicans. “We can’t get any more evenly divided unless somebody wasn’t there,” Miller said , referring the state Senate’s 17-16 partisan split. “If we’re going to bipartisan work on a mining bill, we ought to have equal members.” While Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald initially indicated he wanted just two Democrats — Jauch and Jim Holperin, he agreed Thursday to Millers picks “in the efforts of moving forward with our shared goal of creating jobs in Northern Wisconsin.”

READ:  release from Majority Leader Fitzgerald (PDF)

Rodgers is NFC’s Offensive Player of the Month

Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers has been named the NFC Offensive Player

Aaron Rodgers

of the Month for September.

Rodgers helped lead the Packers to a 3-0 record, completing 71% of his passes for 917 yards, 8 touchdowns and only 1 interception.  His passer rating of 120.9 is tops in the NFL.

This is Rodgers’ third career Player of the Month Award and second in a row.  He previously was honored in October 2009 and December 2010.

Rodgers and the Packers face the Denver Broncos this Sunday at Lambeau Field.

Plug pulled on troubled Madison bar

R Place bar PHOTO: WRN

Madison is taking action against a troubled bar with a largely African-American clientele. The city is in the process of shutting down ‘R Place on Park’ following several incidents which culminated in a shooting last week that wounded three people. Bar owner Rick Flowers claims lack of police presence is to blame. ‘They say ‘we can’t baby sit you,’ and they put all the resources down to protect other people, and let hell break loose in some other area,” said Flowers. A Dane County judge has ordered that ‘R Place on Park’ remain closed while the city continues action against the bar, and that three shootings in a year constitute a “danger to the community.” Flowers disagreed. “He doesn’t see the relevance of lack of police protection,” said Flowers. “I contend that if the police are going to let an area go bad, they do it by just not being there.” [Read more...]

Brewers start Saturday afternoon

The Milwaukee Brewers will start their NL Division Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks at 1:07pm CT on Saturday at Miller Park.

The first pitch time in game 2 is set for 3:37pm Sunday afternoon at Miller Park.