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America, Daily Bread, History, Holiday, Liberty

Daily Bread for 7.4.26: Happy Independence Day

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with scattered afternoon thundershowers and a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:22 and sunset is 8:36 for 15 hours 14 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 89.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Independence Holiday celebration continues today at the Cravath Lakefront:

Whippet City Mile: 9:50 AM
Parade: 10 AM
F-35 Lightning II Flyover along the parade route: 10:50 AM
Local Vendors and Beer Garden: 11 AM-10 PM
Carnival: 11:30 AM-11:30 PM
Live Music: 11 AM-11 PM
Fireworks: 9:45 PM

On this day in 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopts the United States Declaration of Independence.

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and a New Ethics Ordinance.

Drone show lights up the sky over Philadelphia’s Independence Hall:

Daily Bread, History, Liberty, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 7.3.26: Wisconsin in 1776

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see a mix of sunny skies and showers with a high of 85. Sunrise is 5:21 and sunset is 8:36 for 15 hours 15 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 88.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Independence Holiday celebration continues today at the Cravath Lakefront:

Local Vendors and Beer Garden: 11 AM-10 PM
Carnival: 11:30 AM-10:30 PM
Live Music: 11 AM-11 PM

On this day in 1863, the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg culminates in a Union victory.

There are many reasons, sound and principled, for present-day Wisconsinites to celebrate America’s independence from Great Britain. (The only condition as objectionable as life under a king abroad would be life under a king at home.) The area that is now the state of Wisconsin, however, was distant and removed from the politics and culture of the Revolution.

Bridgit Bowden writes of life in Wisconsin in 1776:

Wisconsin wouldn’t join the nation until 1848, more than 70 years after its founding. But, the many tribal nations who called this region home were closely tied to European settlers by 1776 and became part of the history of the American Revolution. 

University of Wisconsin-Madison history professor John Hall joined WPR’s “Wisconsin Life” to talk about that history and life in the region 250 years ago. 

In 1776, the principal residents of the state were indigenous people, Hall said.  

“Those included people who have lived in what we call Wisconsin for time immemorial,” Hall said, including the Ojibwe, Dakota, Menominee and Ho Chunk. It also included the Sauk and Meskwaki, who were not indigenous but had migrated over the preceding century.  

These tribes had been trading with each other for “centuries, if not millennia,” Hall said, and by 1776, they were also involved in a transatlantic trade network.  

[…]

By the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, Great Britain had largely replaced France as the region’s primary economic partner. Still, Hall said most native people would have been trading furs with people who they already knew through “kinship networks.” 

“So, the fact that at the upper levels, this trade is with Britain now, rather than French mercantile interests is not really salient for people engaged in the trade at the village level,” he said. 

See Bridgit Bowden, Wisconsin wasn’t a state in 1776. What did life look like here 250 years ago? (‘Historian discusses Wisconsin tribes and their role in the American Revolution’), Wisconsin Public Radio, July 3, 2026.

We are not now, however, distant and removed from the principles of the Declaration. Wisconsin finds herself in the thick of the action — central and indispensable to America’s well-being.

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and a New Ethics Ordinance.

What’s Up for July 2026 with Skywatching Tips from NASA:

A predawn meetup between the Moon and planets, a returning comet, dark skies for the Milky Way, and Saturn’s unusually thin rings. Before sunrise on July 11 and 12, look east/southeast for the waning crescent Moon, Mars, and Saturn. Uranus is in the same part of the sky, but you will need binoculars or a telescope to spot it. Around July 14, use binoculars or a telescope to seek Comet 10P/Tempel 2 under dark skies of the New Moon. Those nights are also a great time to look for the Milky Way, while later in the month Saturn’s rings appear strikingly thin through a telescope. 0:00 Intro 0:11 Moon, Mars, Saturn, and Uranus before dawn 0:47 Comet 10P/Tempel 2 1:35 Dark skies for the Milky Way 2:34 Saturn’s thin rings 2:57 July Moon phases.

Animals, Cats, Science/Nature

Friday Catblogging: Which Big Cat Has the Strongest Bite?

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Sarah McPherson asks Which big cat has the strongest bite and just how deadly is that bite for humans?:

The jaguar has the strongest bite of any big cat relative to its size. Research by Adam Hartstone-Rose and colleagues at the University of South Carolina, who compared the bite forces of nine different cat species, reveals that a jaguar’s bite force is only three-quarters as strong as a tiger’s bite force.

However, given that jaguars are considerably smaller (the body mass of the individual in the study was only half that of the tiger), relatively speaking their bite is stronger.

“If you had to choose, you’d want to be bitten by a jaguar, not a lion or a tiger. But pound for pound, jaguars pack a stronger punch,” says Adam.

See Sara McPherson, Which big cat has the strongest bite AND just how deadly is that bite for humans?, BBC Wildlife, July 2, 2026.

Best not to let any big cat bite you, all things considered.

Daily Bread, Economy, Employment

Daily Bread for 7.2.26: American Job Creation Disappoints in June

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be increasingly sunny with a high of 90. Sunrise is 5:20 and sunset is 8:37 for 15 hours 17 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 94.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission is scheduled to meet at 6 PM.

Whitewater’s Independence Holiday celebration begins today at the Cravath Lakefront:

Local Vendors and Beer Garden: 4-10:30 PM
Carnival: 4:30-10:30 PM
Pageant: 6-9 PM

On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress adopts the Lee Resolution severing ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain. The wording of the formal Declaration of Independence is agreed upon and publicly released two days later, on July 4.

June was another disappointing month for job creation, with prior months also adjusted downward:

The U.S. economy saw job creation cool sharply heading into the summer, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday.

Nonfarm payrolls for June increased by a seasonally adjusted 57,000 for the month, slower than the downwardly revised 129,000 added in May and worse than the 115,000 Dow Jones consensus forecast.

The unemployment rate, however, dropped to 4.2%, and slightly ahead of the 4.1% where it was a year ago. The move lower was largely due to a slump in the labor force participation rate, which dropped 0.3 percentage points to 61.5%.

(Emphasis added.) See Jeff Cox, U.S. economy added 57,000 jobs in June, less than expected; unemployment rate at 4.2%, CNBC, July 2, 2026.

Tariffs, trade wars, and forever wars will take a toll on an economy.

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and a New Ethics Ordinance.

Lava from Mount Etna Lights Up Sicilian Sky:

Lava flowing from Mount Etna in Sicily lit up the sky on 29 June.

Daily Bread, Gubernatorial Race 2026, Politics, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 7.1.26: Political Clash Is a Necessary, Useful Approach

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 92. Sunrise is 5:20 and sunset is 8:37 for 15 hours 17 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board’s Human Resources Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1963, ZIP codes are introduced for United States mail.

A 1963 U.S. Post Office sign featuring Mr. ZIP, Public Domain, Link

There’s a story over at Wisconsin Pubic Radio about the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial campaign turning negative. See Anya van Wagtendonk, Wisconsin Democratic primary for governor turns negative, Wisconsin Public Radio, June 30, 2026. The particulars of this intraparty clash are mild, and in any event I’m not a Democrat.

Clash between candidates, however, where clash (a debating term) is a direct response of one side to an opposing side’s claims, is an encouraging development. It’s informative to know where someone stands, and to know of other positions for which he or she will not stand.

There’s much too much at stake to be vague, anodyne, or toxically positive. Have at it, and grow stronger for it.

Some Democrats will prove stronger than others, and so show themselves stronger candidates in the fall. Tom Tiffany, Trump’s man in Wisconsin, isn’t going to go away. He will need to be shown the door in November.

There’s no point in a candidacy if the candidate doesn’t intend to win. Intending to win is not a task for the demure and delicate.

A bit of intraparty clash between candidates? Keep going.

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and a New Ethics Ordinance.

At the World Cup, France fans revel in dazzling victory over Sweden. Well done:

France fans spilled out of New York-New Jersey stadium singing ‘Allez les Bleus!’ after watching Kylian Mbappe net twice to help them to a 3-0 win over Sweden and into the World Cup last 16.

The United States plays against Bosnia and Herzegovina this evening at 7 PM CDT in Santa Clara at Levi’s Stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Daily Bread, Employment, Nature

Daily Bread for 6.30.26: Nature Brings Employment

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 91. Sunrise is 5:19 and sunset is 8:37 for 15 hours 17 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1908, the Tunguska Event, the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history, results in a massive explosion over eastern Siberia.

There’s occasional talk from the federal administration about how particular industries bring jobs. Often these industries are ones in which Trump, his family, or his cronies have an economic interest. As it turns out, although Trump is no one’s idea of an outdoorsman1, the outdoors support huge numbers of useful and fulfilling jobs.

There are, in fact, more (and cleaner) jobs in nature-related employment in the Midwest alone than there are in the entire U.S. coal industry:

See U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, All Employees, Coal Mining, Fed. Rsrv. Bank of St. Louis, FRED (last updated June 5, 2026).

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  1. It’s a joke even to suggest, right? Riding a golf cart is not the activity of an outdoorsman. It’s the activity of an octogenarian Florida man who’s never hiked a trail, pitched a tent, or prepared a meal in the wilderness. ↩︎

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and a New Ethics Ordinance.

Mount Etna lava lights up Sicilian sky:

Lava from Mount Etna in Sicily lit up the sky with red flashes as eruptions continued at an elevation of 9,800 feet, Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology reported.

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Law, Litigation, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 6.29.26: Federal Appeals Court Rejects Trump Administration’s Request for Speedy Resolution of Demand for Wisconsin’s Voter Rolls

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will see mostly sunny skies and a high of 91. Sunrise is 5:19 and sunset is 8:37 for 15 hours 18 minutes of daylight. The moon will be full this evening.

On this day in 1764, one of the strongest tornadoes in history strikes Woldegk, Germany, killing one person while leveling numerous mansions with winds estimated at greater than 300 miles per hour.

In the federal appellate system, Wisconsin is one of three states (along with Illinois and Indiana) that are part of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. (Collectively, these three states contain seven federal trial court districts.) The Trump administration is eager — desperate, truly — to examine states’ voter rolls in a baseless attempt to allege voter fraud or otherwise meddle in the constitutional role of states to manage their own elections. The administration has lost every lawsuit it has filed for that purpose. Recently, the Seventh Circuit rejected a Trump administration request to expedite an appeal to examine Wisconsin’s voter rolls:

President Donald Trump’s administration had another setback this week in its attempt to get unredacted voter registration data from Wisconsin. 

After losing in federal district court last month, the U.S. Department of Justice asked the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to expedite its lawsuit in order to audit Wisconsin’s voter registration list ahead of the August primary and November general election — demanding sensitive voter data like drivers license information and partial Social Security numbers.

The DOJ’s emergency motion suggested “many” absentee ballots could be sent to “non-citizens” or otherwise “fraudulent” registrants without a federal audit.

The appeals court denied the request on Wednesday.

The DOJ has filed 30 other voter roll lawsuits against states and the District of Columbia, according to an analysis by the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. Of those, nine have been dismissed by federal district court judges.

Trump has repeatedly made false claims about widespread election fraud with absentee voting by mail. The attempt to force states like Wisconsin to produce unredacted voter data coincides with a proposed U.S. Postal Service rule that wouldn’t allow ballots to be mailed unless the voter sending it is on a federally approved list. The rule proposal was blocked by a federal judge on Thursday.

See Rich Kremer, Trump administration request for speedy resolution of voter roll lawsuit rejected by 7th Circuit (US Department of Justice claims auditing sensitive voter registration data will safeguard upcoming elections. Wisconsin Elections Commission calls that notion ‘absurd’), Wisconsin Public Radio, June 26, 2026.

There are many months, perhaps years, ahead before these cases across the country are decided.

_____

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and a New Ethics Ordinance.

Shift observed on Trinidad shoreline after Venezuela earthquakes:

Business, Daily Bread, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 6.28.26: Two Billion Dollars of Vaporware in Grant County

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see periods of clouds and sunshine with an afternoon thunderstorm and a high of 76. Sunrise is 5:18 and sunset is 8:37 for 15 hours 19 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 97.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo, beginning the July Crisis and providing the casus belli of World War I.

Some projects prove to be nothing more than the equivalent of vaporware, a computer industry term for a proposal that never comes into being. Tom Kertscher reports on what looks to be a data-center version of vaporware in Grant County:

Even for a guy like Ron Brisbois, whose job is to cultivate prosperity, a data center proposed for Wisconsin’s Driftless Area was too big to imagine.

Nothing like this had come along in Brisbois’ quarter-century as economic development director in rural Grant County. An up to $2 billion project spanning 500 acres would be at least three times larger — in dollars and space — than any development in the county.

The construction contracts. Dozens of new permanent jobs. Millions of extra tax revenue for schools and local government. This is what economic development is all about.

For months, the out-of-state developers pitching the data center spoke repeatedly with Brisbois. They toured the county in Wisconsin’s southwest corner. They visited Madison to discuss details with state officials. 

Their talk was big. 

But Brisbois never dug into the developers’ backgrounds.

Then, as if someone flipped a switch, they stopped returning his calls.

Now, a project that would have been historically transformational — and was already highly controversial — is all but dead.

Drawing on two months of behind-the-scenes interviews Wisconsin Watch conducted with Brisbois, here’s the behind-the-scenes story of the rise and fall of a data center proposal. 

See Tom Kertscher, A $2 billion proposal, then silence: How a Driftless Area data center deal fell apart (‘Developers pitched a 500-acre project for rural Grant County but, as opposition mounted, they ‘ghosted’ the county’s point person. The potential deal appears to be dead’), Wisconsin Watch, June 22, 2026.

Intriguing, and well worth reading in full. Some deals go nowhere, and amount to little more than big talk.

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and a New Ethics Ordinance.

Lightning strikes Eiffel Tower as thunderstorm rages over Paris:

Animals, Daily Bread, Nature, Plants

Daily Bread for 6.27.26: Bats, the Other Pollinator

by  • 

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 76. Sunrise is 5:18 and sunset is 8:37 for 15 hours 19 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 94.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War, sailors start a mutiny aboard the Russian battleship Potemkin.

Little Red Flying Foxes. By Mdk572 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Many insects are pollinators, and among those invertebrates honey bees receive the most attention. (Indeed, they receive so much attention that one often hears nothing except honey bee, honey bee, honey bee. That repetition doesn’t capture the diversity of pollinators — it simply repeats the common name of one insect three times.)

Let’s fix that. Fortunately, this libertarian blogger subscribes to the newsletter of Bat Conservation International, this planet’s leading bat preservation society. In their latest edition, Alyson Brokaw writes of bats’ key role in pollination:

Who clocks in when the birds and bees clock out? To celebrate Pollinator Week, let’s follow the night as it travels westward around the globe to meet just some of the bats working the pollinator night shift. 

[…]

Across Australia, bats are the main characters of pollination for the iconic eucalyptus forests. Bats like the little red flying fox (Pteropus scapulatus), spectacled flying fox (Pteropus conspicillatus), and grey-headed flying fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) roam long distances in search of blooming flowers. The resulting ecological and economic “bat ripple” effects are staggering: the median contribution of grey-headed flying fox pollination services to Australia’s eucalypt timber industry has been estimated at over $600 million AUD per year (with seed dispersal services contributing to recruitment of 13.9 million trees annually). The bats’ collective ‘service area’ spans up to 41 million hectares, an area roughly the size of Sweden!

Meanwhile in the northern hemisphere, the lush hills of Okinawajima Island, Japan rise dark and dense against the last wash of daylight. Beneath the canopy, pendulous bunches of purple and green flowers hang from the vines of rusty-leaf mucuna (Mucuna macrocarpa) and a Ryukyu flying fox (Pteropus dasymallus) has found them. The bat hooks a clawed thumb around a flower, pulling it closer. As the bat pushes its nose into the base of the flower, a tiny trigger at the base of the flower fires, hitting the bat’s face with a big puff of pollen. This “explosive opening” gives the bat access to the nectar within and bats may be the only visitors who can set it off, making them critical partners in this plant’s reproduction. 

Across the world, in deserts and rainforests, on remote islands and over farmlands, bats have been hard at work while other pollinators sleep. 

See Alyson Brokaw, World Tour of Bat Pollination: Meet the bats working the pollinator night shift, Bat Conservation International, June 24, 2026.

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and a New Ethics Ordinance.

FIFA World Cup 2026 ball goes to space – Astronauts play:

Daily Bread, Economy

Daily Bread for 6.26.26: So, What’s Up Lately? The Sky, Treetops, Birds, and Inflation

by  • 

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 74. Sunrise is 5:18 and sunset is 8:37 for 15 hours 19 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 89.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1963, President Kennedy gives his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, underlining the support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after Soviet-supported East Germany erected the Berlin Wall.

After tariffs, trade wars, the One Big Beautiful Bill, and forever wars excursions abroad, inflation rose yet again in May:

The Federal Reserve’s primary price gauge rose at its highest level since 2023, reinforcing the central bank’s recent tough talk on inflation.

Excluding food and energy, the personal consumption expenditures price index showed a 3.4% annual rate after rising 0.3% for the month, both in line with the Dow Jones consensus. The annual core reading was the highest since October 2023.

For the all-items reading, the PCE index showed inflation running at a seasonally adjusted 4.1% annual rate, the highest since April 2023, according to a Commerce Department report Thursday. On a monthly basis, the PCE accelerated 0.4%. The annual level was in line with the Dow Jones consensus estimate while the monthly reading was 0.1 percentage point below.

While Fed officials look at both headline and core rates, they generally consider the latter a better measure of long-run trends, particularly in light of this year’s inflation surge that was driven largely by an acceleration in energy prices tied to the Iran war that have slowly been seeping into other parts of the economy.

See Jeff Cox, Core inflation rate hit 3.4% in May, highest since October 2023, Fed’s preferred gauge shows, CNBC, June 25, 2026.

These economic developments must surprise people in Whitewater who relied on the city’s top-notch economic panel of landlords (some of whom live in the city and others of whom live beyond the city limits while charging rent to those who actually live in the city).

By contrast, the many thousands in the city who relied on sound, professional economic reporting from national publications saw this coming.

_____

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and a New Ethics Ordinance.

Europe’s extreme heat would be impossible without climate change, scientists say:

City, Daily Bread, Development, Economy, Good Ideas, Housing

Daily Bread for 6.25.26: The Growing Consensus for More Housing

by  • 

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon showers with a high of 76. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset is 8:37 for 15 hours 20 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 82.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1950, the Korean War begins when North Korea invades South Korea.

Even if yesterday’s men want to pretend Whitewater is an island — and she’s not an island — sooner or later, an understanding of something more and better would take hold. So it has. News organizations from across the state have noticed Whitewater’s progress.

Consider recent headlines.

Development haven: Several commercial, residential projects ongoing in Whitewater:

Harbor Homes continues to build single-family homes in the Park Crest subdivision, and have pulled all their remaining building permits.

US Shelter is continuing to build owner-occupied duplexes on the west side of the city.

The Common Council also approved the sale of 3.5 acres of City-owned land to Tanis Construction, who will be building at least four owner-occupied single-family homes on an infill site a short distance from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater campus.

“We do have a housing crisis,” Becker said. “We’ve had a shortage of new construction housing since the Great Recession, and that’s true of our entire region.”

Before the Great Recession, housing development in Jefferson County and Wisconsin was more than double its current rate.

In 2005, Jefferson County’s net new construction rate was 3.1%, Wisconsin’s was 2.8%, and inflation was 3.4%,” the report [a recent Wisconsin Policy Forum report] states. In 2025, Jefferson’s rate was 0.7%, the state’s was nearly 1.7%, and inflation was 2.6%.

Since 2011, Jefferson County’s rate of net new construction has frequently trailed both the statewide average and inflation.

However, those trends in Whitewater are climbing. And while multifamily housing for students has always remained consistent, Becker again emphasized the need for all housing in the area, especially single family.

See Zack Goodrow, Development haven: Several commercial, residential projects ongoing in Whitewater, Daily Jefferson County Union, June 4, 2026.

How Whitewater is trying to build more housing for university grads:

A recent report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum found development and housing construction in Jefferson County, as in many other communities, has lagged behind demand since the Great Recession.

“Nestled between Milwaukee and Madison and bisected by Interstate 94, Jefferson County in theory has strong opportunities for development,” the report says. “In practice, that has not materialized.”

The slower development has impacted local government coffers through reduced property tax intakes and declining public school enrollment, leading to lower levels of state assistance, even as housing costs rise. In April 2021, the average home sale in Jefferson County was roughly $250,000. This April, it was $394,000, above the statewide average, according to Redfin figures.

“Over time, new construction might bring businesses, jobs, and a variety of residents, including families with children. It might also help to limit increases in housing costs for residents as the population grows,” the Wisconsin Policy Forum report says.

See Will Briggs, How Whitewater is trying to build more housing for university grads, Capital Times, June 2, 2026.

Whitewater neighbors witness new housing construction across the city:

Whitewater hopes to become a place where more people live when classes are not in session. Walworth County’s largest city is poised to grow even more with new housing.

[…]

Stonehaven developer Tim Vandeville says the first homes could be ready for families in 60 days since the homes are being built off-site and moved to the site. He said he wants to provide new housing as soon as he can because of the demand.

“There’s an entire generation of people that are being priced out of the market in general, and future buyers will be completely priced out,” Vandeville said. “For us, it was a mission about tackling affordability and attainability.”

The Stonehaven development is not the only new addition to the neighborhood. Whitewater City Council also approved the future construction of a Piggly Wiggly grocery store and early child education center on Bluff Road during their meeting Tuesday night.

See Taj Simmons, Whitewater neighbors witness new housing construction across the city, TMJ4, June 17, 2026.

There is, perhaps, a futile hope among those few who have made themselves adversaries of progress that they’ll someday get back to their cronyism. Too late: their conflict is not principally with the municipal government but rather with those of us who support the fulfillment of genuine community needs.

This libertarian blogger can say of his own view that there will be no relenting now, either in support of recent progress or in opposition to progress’s adversaries.

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and a New Ethics Ordinance.

Meet the team tailoring spacesuits for lunar astronauts:

America, City, Culture, Daily Bread, Development, Housing, Special Interests

Daily Bread for 6.24.26: Housing Then, Now, and What It Means for Whitewater

by  • 

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 75. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset is 8:37 for 15 hours 20 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 75.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks and Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1812, Napoleon’s Grande Armée crosses the Neman River, beginning the invasion of Russia. (Within six months, hundreds of thousands in the Grande Armée would be dead, captured, missing, or would have deserted.)

Yesterday, for the first time in a generation, Congress passed comprehensive housing legislation. This legislation received support from the leaders of both major parties, including conservative Republican leaders:

The bill’s passage, by a lopsided 358-to-32 vote, ended months of sparring between the House and the Senate over a sprawling measure that aims to tackle the housing crisis by boosting supply in a country facing an acute shortage of new homes. The Senate passed its version of the same bill Monday, by a vote of 85 to 5.

With dozens of provisions, the 21st Century Road to Housing Act aims to touch communities across the country, addressing rural and urban needs as part of a strategy to eventually bring down housing costs. It loosens federal regulations, making it easier, faster and cheaper to build; eases lending rules; rewards communities that build; delivers aid to communities reeling from disasters; and, in a policy that proved to be one of the biggest flash points but was favored by Mr. Trump, sets new limits on the role institutional investors can play in the market.

[…]

In the years since the 2008 foreclosure crisis, builders have not constructed enough homes to keep up with a growing population. The country is short several million new housing units, according to some estimates. So, home prices have continued to stay high despite weak demand because there simply aren’t enough of them. Building new homes could bring down prices by adding more supply to the market, but that will take time.

See Ronda Kaysen, Congress Clears Housing Bill, New York Times, June 23, 2026.

These provisions — rectifications, truly, of past mistakes — will take time to work. See Tony Romm, Housing Package Passed by Congress Has Wide Appeal, but It’s No Quick Fix, New York Times, June 24, 2026.

One would have preferred purely private action then or now, but even Congress sees that the many public policy mistakes of the past sometimes require intervention simply to set matters right. (There is a reason, after all, that free-market advocates oppose monopoly, oligopoly, and regulatory manipulation to benefit only a few. That’s why there is antitrust law with redress for past imbalances.)

Locally, a tiny clique of landlords has fought these last several years against any significant improvement in Whitewater’s housing stock. Don’t want this, don’t want that, can’t do this, can’t do that, instead preserving a distorted housing market that favored their own student-rental properties over other options. It was, in fact, men of this ilk who, over the last generation, presided over this imbalance during their control of Whitewater’s old Community Development Authority.

Their claims from the Whitewater Common Council lectern during public comment and debate, while lawful, have been exercises in deficient outcome-driven argumentation.

Again, paraphrasing a line from a film: The greatest trick that Whitewater’s special-interest men ever pulled was convincing anyone, even themselves, that they had any credible economic insights to offer.

Consider, though, the position these gentlemen are in now: in the city, in the state, and across our entire nation, policymakers realize that there is a need for more housing options. This recognition comes from leaders of both major parties, representing places big and small, urban and rural.

And so, and so, the choice is quite stark, isn’t it? One can accept the reasoning and insights of policymakers from across the most productive nation in history, or instead choose the claims of a few small-town men pushing only their own self-interest.

Good luck and God bless to all concerned in making that choice.

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and a New Ethics Ordinance.

James Webb Space Telescope captures stunning view of Cigar Galaxy: