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Daily Bread, Health, Vaccines, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.12.25: Wisconsin Sensibly Stays the Course on Childhood Vaccination

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 25. Sunrise is 7:16 and sunset is 4:20 for 9 hours 4 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 42.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 2000, the United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore.

Wisconsin health officials have sensibly ignored a loud faction’s campaign against childhood vaccinations:

Wisconsin health officials say all babies should be vaccinated against hepatitis B at birth despite a recent change from federal vaccine advisers.

Last week, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended that babies receive the hepatitis B shot in the first 24 hours of life if their mothers tested positive for the virus or if the mothers’ status is unknown. The recommendation, which goes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says women who test negative for the virus should talk to their doctors about the vaccine.

Dr. Ryan Westergaard, chief medical officer at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, said Thursday that decades of evidence supports hepatitis B vaccination as a safe and effective strategy to protect infants.

…

Hepatitis B is a serious viral infection that affects the liver, and can lead to lifelong disease including liver failure and cancer. Up to 90 percent of infants who are infected will develop chronic liver disease. But in adults, an infection can be asymptomatic. Roughly half of people with hepatitis B don’t know they carry the virus.

Since the universal birth dose recommendation was adopted in the 1990s, pediatric hepatitis B infections have declined by 99 percent, according to Westergaard. He said there were no cases in Wisconsin newborns last year, and the state has seen between 0 and 2 cases annually over the last decade.

“That success reflects a simple, reliable approach that aims to protect every baby, including when screening and follow up doesn’t go perfectly in the real world,” Westergaard told reporters.

See Hope Kirwan, Wisconsin reaffirms support of hepatitis B vaccine for newborns, defying federal advisers (‘CDC advisory committee voted last week to end recommendation of a universal birth dose. But state health officials are directing Wisconsin doctors to carry on with the 30-year standard of care’), Wisconsin Public Radio, December 11, 2025.

Hiker mired in quicksand in Utah’s Arches National Park is rescued unharmed:

A hiker was rescued on Sunday after he was caught in quicksand in Arches National Park, Utah.

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, December 16th, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

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Tuesday, December 16th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Holiday/ Comedy/Family Rated PG

1 hours, 39 minutes (2024)

From the creator of the TV series “The Chosen.” Nobody is ready for the mayhem and surprises that ensue when six of the worst youngsters disrupt a small town’s yearly Christmas performance. 

One can find more information about The Best Christmas Pageant Ever at the Internet Movie Database.

City, Daily Bread, Foxconn, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.11.25: Foxconn’s Next Con

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 24. Sunrise is 7:15 and sunset is 4:20 for 9 hours 5 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 53.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Arts Commission meets at 5 PM, and the Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Commission meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1941, Germany and Italy declare war on the United States, following America’s declaration of war on the Empire of Japan in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States, in turn, declares war on them.

Foxconn is back in the news:

A Wisconsin plant that President Donald Trump and Republicans championed during his first administration as the “8th Wonder of the World” is set to venture into building data centers with a new $569 million[1]investment.

But members of Congress said the state should first address serious concerns from constituents about manufacturers’ energy and water use, which could strain existing infrastructure and leave consumers footing the bill.

“The average Wisconsinite should not have to subsidize the power or water for a commercial entity,” Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden said.

Foxconn, a Taiwanese company and one of the world’s largest electronics manufacturers, says it will create nearly 1,400 jobs in Racine County over the next four years, in exchange for up to $96 million in total performance-based tax credits. It’s the second amendment to the company’s contract with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. after Foxconn dramatically rolled back its initial plan, proposed in 2017, to invest $10 billion and create as many as 13,000 jobs.

…

Some Wisconsin residents have spoken out against data centers’ environmental impacts, including at small protests in seven cities across the state in the first week of December.

Just two major data centers slated for development alone, including the Microsoft project, would require the energy of 4.3 million homes, according to Clean Wisconsin, an advocacy organization that has criticized rising resource demands from the state’s data centers.

“The issue is we only have 2.8 million homes in Wisconsin,” said Amy Barrilleaux, a spokesperson for the organization.

See Jade Lozada, Foxconn, Trump’s ‘America first’ factory, is moving to AI. It’s giving lawmakers some pause, NOTUS, December 5, 2025.

If Foxconn has moved on to new sketchy claims after the failure of old ones, the same can be said of the local Whitewater men who once touted Foxconn’s fortunes. These same Whitewater gentlemen who showcased Foxconn’s Wisconsin scheme2 during the last decade have now moved on to advising residents about local policy3.

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  1. A claimed investment. But then, Foxconn has made many claims, with only some being true. ↩︎
  2. See A Sham News Story on Foxconn. ↩︎
  3. Their track record locally is, in fact, a version of error all its own. ↩︎

Hiker mired in quicksand in Utah’s Arches National Park is rescued unharmed:

A hiker was rescued on Sunday after he was caught in quicksand in Arches National Park, Utah.

Conservation, Daily Bread, Legislation, Legislature, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.10.25: Wisconsin Conservation Program’s Future Uncertain

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 31. Sunrise is 7:15 and sunset is 4:20 for 9 hours 5 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 62.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1864, during Sherman’s March to the Sea, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Union Army troops reach the outer Confederate defenses of Savannah, Georgia.

Wisconsin’s Knowles-Nelson Stewardship conservation program looks likely to expire at the end of this year:

The looming shutdown of Wisconsin’s decades old Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program has put conservation projects across Wisconsin at risk as land trusts attempt to muddle on without the program that has protected more than 700,000 acres of land in the state. 

Without the stewardship fund, projects to conserve 1,300 acres of Northwoods forest near the headwaters of the Wisconsin River in Vilas County, hundreds of acres of “ecologically significant” wetlands in Door County and dozens of acres of prairie and grassland in Dane County could go unfinished. 

“It’s a bit bleak and it’s so disheartening to know that there’s so many beautiful, wonderful places kind of on the chopping block right now all across the state,” says Emily Wood, executive director of the Door County Land Trust. “It’s not just us. We hear from our partners that there are hundreds and thousands of acres that are just not going to be protected if [the program] goes away, and that’s going to have such an impact, domino effect, on future generations.” 

The Knowles-Nelson Stewardship fund was created in 1989 to fund land conservation in Wisconsin. The program provides grants to local governments and non-profits to cover some of the costs for purchasing and conserving land that can be used for recreation, preserving animal habitats and supporting local industries such as forestry. 

See Henry Redman, ‘Just don’t kill it’: Wisconsin land trusts face 2026 expiration of Knowles-Nelson stewardship fund, Wisconsin Examiner, December 9, 2025.

See also The Push to Save a Wisconsin Conservation Program.

Regrettable, but predictable: Wisconsin doesn’t have a bipartisan politics.

CCTV shows moment powerful earthquake hits Japan:

CCTV footage showed tremors in cities across north-eastern Japan on Monday after a powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake. Orders were given for about 90,000 residents to leave their homes but tsunami warnings were later downgraded to advisories.

Culture, Daily Bread, Politics

Daily Bread for 12.9.25: Three, Three, and Three (They’re All Different)

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 7:14 and sunset is 4:20 for 9 hours 6 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 72.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Board of Zoning Appeals meets at 5 PM and the Public Works Committee at 5:15 PM.

On this day in 1775, British troops and Loyalists, misinformed about Patriot militia strength, lose the Battle of Great Bridge, ending British rule in Virginia.

We live in emotional, dyspeptic times. This is perhaps more true today even than in 1972, when Anthony Downs wrote, in National Affairs, about an issue-attention cycle concerning ecological policy. Downs observed that

a systematic “issue-attention cycle” seems strongly to influence public attitudes and behavior concerning most key domestic problems. Each of these problems suddenly leaps into prominence, remains there for a short time, and then though still largely unresolved–gradually fades from the center of public attention. A study of the way this cycle operates provides insights into how long public attention is likely to remain sufficiently focused upon any given issue to generate enough political pressure to cause effective change.

See Anthony Downs, Up and down with ecology — the “issue-attention cycle” , Nat’l Affs., Summer 1972, at 38.

I’ll borrow Downs’s concept and apply it a bit differently: there’s (in this time, our time) a public reaction in the first three hours, then the first three days, and later in the first three months. What begins so strongly as to appear irresistible in three hours looks less so after three days and looks again wholly different after three months.

Social media undoubtedly plays a role — a deceptive one — in persuading that the first three hours’ reaction will carry the day. That’s seldom likely, not merely because feeling fades, but more so because counterclaims on the same topic or other topics entirely emerge. What seems so certain, so inevitable, seldom is.

Perhaps someone who holds a minority ideological position, as I do, sees this more easily: many efforts begin initially as a defensive position against a larger, often majority, opinion. If all the engagement were decided in three hours’ time, well, that would be difficult; most engagements stretch, by contrast, over days and months.

Look around: how many supposedly decisive moments in the news, how many this-changes-everything declarations look different after only a few months? Many, often most, of them.

If one stays steady for mere hours and days, making good use of that time, the months produce a different result than initial responses suggested.

American Kestrel Cam’s Top 5 Highlights in 2025:

00:00 Introduction
00:10 American Kestrels Have A Chat During Incubation Switch: American Kestrels Have A Chat As Female Re…  
00:31 Female Kestrel Reveals Fifth Hatchling During Lunch Feeding: Fifth And Final Chick Hatches At American …  
00:52 Five Female Chicks Flap Away In Their New Feathers: Flapping Frenzy Reveals Five Female Nestli…  
01:11 Kestrel Sisters Squabble Over An Insect Snack: Kestrel Chick Grabs Sister’s Foot As They …  
01:27 Fledgling Supercut: Watch All Five Chicks Take Flight: Fledgling Supercut! Watch All Five America…  

Budget, City, Daily Bread, Local Government

Daily Bread for 12.8.25: Whitewater Common Council Adopts a Modern Budget

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 23. Sunrise is 7:13 and sunset is 4:20 for 9 hours 7 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 81.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater Fire Department Inc. meets at 6 PM and the Plan & Architectural Review Commission also meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares December 7 to be “a date which will live in infamy,” after which the U.S. declares war on Japan.

On Tuesday, December 2, the Whitewater Common Council adopted a modern, forward-looking budget on a 6-1 vote. The position of the Whitewater Common Council was the right decision. While it’s possible to describe aspects of local policy in political terms of left, center, or right (as this libertarian blogger sometimes has), this budget is best understood in different terms: as positioning this city well for present conditions and future opportunities. It is, simply expressed, a budget more in keeping with the needs of a community of many thousands than any prior effort over the last generation.

Efforts of the last decades — over a generation, really — were directed as though the government were of a few, by a few, and for a few1. Whitewater was deserving of more than that. We are a city not of a few, but of fifteen thousand. Those thousands of our fellow residents need, and deserve, modern services both for our community today and and also for a prosperous future.

Along will come a few from the past (or those they’ve collected) to say that their policies, of yesteryear, were so very much better. More pointedly, they’ll say that today’s policies should be yesteryear’s policies perpetually2. Well, this libertarian blogger was there in yesteryear, and it was often a dog’s breakfast of bad ideas, wastefully executed.

Americans are a dynamic, inventive, and innovative people. Each generation builds something new to meet the new circumstances before it. Modern is worth defending.

This conversation is sure to continue over the next several months.

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  1. Indeed, right-leaning residents from successful Wisconsin communities visiting Whitewater have been among the first to notice that Whitewater was poorly balanced over this last generation, with too much attention to the demands of student-rental operators and not enough to the city as a place for all residents, equally considered and respected. ↩︎
  2. They’ve a full quiver of other helpful advice, no doubt: Just walk in and hand them your résumé — that’s how you get a job; kids these days just don’t want to work; stay at the same company for 30 years — that’s how you get ahead. ↩︎

Mount Kilauea in Hawaii resumes its on-and-off eruptions:

Mount Kilauea on Hawaii’s Big Island has resumed its on-and-off eruptions, which have been captivating residents and visitors for nearly a year. The eruption is currently contained within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Daily Bread, Language, Nativism

Daily Bread for 12.7.25: Language and Nativism

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be increasingly sunny with a high of 23. Sunrise is 7:12 and sunset is 4:20 for 9 hours 8 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 90 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy carries out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 

In Britain, under the Labour Party, there will be a requirement next year that migrants speak English at a B2 level1. In America, there is a growing political2 demand for English language proficiency from immigrants. Sophia Smith Galer addresses this question for her own country and finds that nativists might be surprised to learn that they would struggle to meet the standards they’re so keen to impose on others:

Click image to play video.

In the caption to her Instagram post, Smith Galer refers to “A-level English (B2).” She’s using two common British descriptors: for academic achievement generally (that’s the A-level she means) and language proficiency (that’s the B2 level she means). For the British, a person at A-level academically should speak British English at B2 level.

But, but, but… could they? Could we do as well, either, when speaking American English?

The plain answer is that many a nativist would impose a standard on immigrants that he himself would struggle to meet.

American English is beautiful, but beauty (like love) should be embraced freely without demand.

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  1. In Europe, many institutions apply the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) to assess language proficiency. The CEFR adopts a scale ascending from Basic User (level A) to Independent User (level B) to Proficient (level C). There are gradations within each level, e.g., B1 and B2, where B2 requires (by the standard of the scale) a greater proficiency than B1. ↩︎
  2. A political demand is not a market demand: ability to function in the marketplace undoubtedly requires less proficiency than a political demand, or there would be no effort to impose government regulations that require more than the existing marketplace. ↩︎

So, a baby seal walks into a bar…

A seal walked into a bar… Or to use a technical term, it galumphed. A baby fur seal caused confusion when it waddled into a craft beer bar in Richmond, at the top of New Zealand’s South Island, on Sunday. One patron tried to usher the seal out the back door, but it eluded pursuit and dashed into a restroom, where it hid under the dishwasher, which was swiftly unplugged. Salmon was used to lure the seal out into a dog cage, where it stayed until Department of Conservation rangers arrived to collect the seal, whom they were already tracking. The department spokesperson, Helen Otley, said it was released on nearby Rabbit Island, which is considered a safe location due to its dog-free status. It’s not unusual for curious young seals to show up in unexpected places at this time of year, she said, as they follow rivers and streams up to 15 km inland.

Art, Daily Bread, Holiday, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.6.25: Creating the World’s Tallest Glass Tree in Williams Bay

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 30. Sunrise is 7:11 and sunset is 4:20 for 9 hours 9 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 96 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1884, the Washington Monument is completed.

Creating the world’s tallest glass tree:

What stands 36 feet tall, 17 feet wide at the base and has 3,000 pounds of glass on it? That would be the world’s tallest glass tree, created by artist Jason Mack. The tree, made from recycled glass and steel, has become a holiday institution at the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay.

Greeter:



— Bodega Cats (@bodegacats.bsky.social) November 29, 2025 at 7:05 PM

City, Daily Bread, Holiday

Daily Bread for 12.5.25: Whitewater’s Christmas at Cravath Begins Tonight

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 27. Sunrise is 7:10 and sunset is 4:20 for 9 hours 10 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1775, at Fort Ticonderoga, Henry Knox begins his historic transport of artillery to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Christmas at Cravath begins tonight with a holiday market beginning at 5 PM and a parade of lights starting at 6 PM, from Whitewater’s downtown to Cravath Lakefront Park:

Canadian adventure cat Fitz patrols his domain:

Click to play video.

Cats

Friday Catblogging: The Rare Flat-Headed Cat

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Click image to play video.

Here’s a bit from the Felidae Conservation Fund, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit in the United States, about this faraway feline:

A peculiar looking cat with short legs, a long head with tiny, low-set ears, and a short tail, the flat-headed cat has long, thick, and soft fur. The color of the fur is reddish brown on top of the head, dark roan brown on the body, and mottled white on the underbelly. The muzzle and chin are white.

The flat-headed cat’s diet is dominated by fish, so it usually stays close to water. The species’ prey also includes frogs and shrimp. Rodents and domestic chickens are also taken at times. Flat-headed cats also consume fruit and sweet potatoes, the latter from plantations.

The flat-headed cat’s range includes southern Thailand, Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo.

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, December 9th, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, The Family Stone

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Tuesday, December 9th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of The Family Stone @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Holiday/Comedy/Romance Rated PG-13

1 hour, 43 minutes (2005)

From “The Week” magazine: “Diane Keaton’s death will make fans’ annual re-viewing of this cult 2005 holiday drama hit home. She anchors an ensemble cast as a headstrong matriarch who is losing her own cancer battle.” Also stars Dermot Mulroney, Craig T. Nelson, Sara Jessica Parker, and Luke Wilson.

One can find more information about The Family Stone at the Internet Movie Database.

America, Daily Bread, Economy, Employment

Daily Bread for 12.4.25: Layoff Announcements Top 1.1 Million This Year, Most Since 2020 Pandemic

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 16. Sunrise is 7:09 and sunset is 4:21 for 9 hours 12 minutes of daytime. The moon will be full this evening.

On this day in 1864, during Sherman’s March to the Sea, Union cavalry forces defeat Confederate cavalry in the Battle of Waynesboro, Georgia, opening the way for General William T. Sherman’s army to approach the coast.

Going backward is going in the wrong direction:

Layoff announcements this year have hit their highest level since 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the U.S. economy, consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Thursday.

It’s only the sixth time since 1993 that announced job cuts through the month of November have surpassed 1.1 million. The last time was in 2020, when planned cuts totaled 2.3 million by this point in the year.

U.S.-based employers announced 71,321 job cuts in November, Challenger reports. This is fewer than the overall number of layoffs announced in October, but more than in the same month a year ago.

It’s the highest total for the month of November since 2022. Hiring often fluctuates with the season, so economists and analysts typically pay close attention to data from the same month in previous years, and not just month-to-month changes.

Announced job cuts during November “have risen above 70,000 only twice since 2008: in 2022 and 2008,” Challenger’s chief revenue officer, Andy Challenger, said in a statement.

Some of the industries that Challenger said were hit hardest by layoffs last month included technology, food companies and telecommunications firms.

See Steve Kopack, Layoff announcements just hit the highest level since the pandemic, NBC News, December 4, 2025.

A supermoon tonight:

Peak illumination for Whitewater is at 5:14 PM.