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America, Climate, Daily Bread, Science/Nature, Weather, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 9.6.26: The Hotter Climate in Walworth, Jefferson, and Rock Counties

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 6:25 and sunset is 7:20 for 12 hours 55 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning crescent with 25.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1946, United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes announces that the U.S. will follow a policy of economic reconstruction in postwar Germany.

Over the last generation, temperatures in America — and that includes Walworth, Jefferson, and Rock counties — have grown hotter:

Summer has long been known for its spirit of adventure and reprieve, found in fire hydrants and backyard sprinklers, campsites and lemonade stands. It was the time of year when the outdoors could be most fearlessly embraced.

Now summer has a new set of fixtures: face masks, air purifiers and public health alerts. Children stay home from camp on smoke days, a gleeless version of winter’s snow days. People who work outside have turned to salt packets and cooling vests. The notion of enduring the summer rather than embracing it has spread far beyond the Sun Belt.

[…]

Heat is the most widespread change. Summer 2026 is on track to be both the hottest and most humid in the contiguous United States since records began in 1895. Even as the end of summer approaches, much of the country is experiencing waves of heat and humidity. Over the past two weeks, temperatures have climbed 15 to 20 degrees above historical averages in parts of California, the Midwest and the South, leading to school closures and early dismissals.

Here are the increases in days above 90 degree in the three counties near Whitewater since 1995:

Federal policy makes the effects of these climate changes harder to address, let alone remedy:

President Trump asks the nation to ignore the weather around us and treats climate change as a hoax. He has paid companies to cancel clean energy projects while forcing aging coal plants to stay open, including units in Indiana and Colorado whose executives requested permission to shut them down.

The administration has also made it harder for citizens to adapt. Shortly after Mr. Trump took office in January 2025, his administration stopped collecting data that helped the government prepare for natural disasters. It withheld funds to renovate hurricane-prone homes in North Carolina and cooling centers in Florida. Mr. Trump is hastening a future with hotter, smokier and stormier summers, and leaving citizens with fewer defenses.

See Editorial Board, It’s Not Just You. America Has Gotten Much Hotter, New York Times, September 5, 2026.

Here we are: the most technologically advanced society in human history, having built a civilization across an entire continent, hobbled and beset by a federal administration both ignorant and obstinate.

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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), A New Ethics Ordinance, Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.

How discarded oyster shells get a second life:

Discarded oyster shells can be reused instead of thrown away, giving them a second life in coastal restoration projects.

Agriculture, Daily Bread, Economy, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 9.5.26: Wisconsin Dairy Farms Drop Below 5,000 for First Time

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 6:24 and sunset is 7:22 for 12 hours 58 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning crescent with 35.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1774, the First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia.

Jim Massey, writing at Farm Progress, reports that the number of Wisconsin dairy farms has dropped below 5,000:

The number of Wisconsin dairy herds slipped below 5,000 in August, just 3% of the number of dairy herds the state boasted at its peak nearly 100 years ago.

The official number, as compiled by the National Agricultural Statistics Service, was 4,991 licensed dairy herds in the Dairy State as of Aug. 1, down from 5,222 a year earlier. The state had 5,470 dairy herds back in 2024.

Dairy herd numbers have been on a downward trend since NASS recorded 167,000 dairy herds in the state in 1930.

1960: 95,000
1980: 44,000
2000: 19,232

The steepest single-year decline occurred in 2019, when 818 farms stopped shipping milk.

While dairy farm numbers have fallen drastically in Wisconsin since the turn of the century, milk production has remained relatively stable over the past 25 years.

See Jim Massey, Wisconsin dairy farms drop below 5,000 for first time, Farm Progress, August 27, 2026.

These numbers suggest greater efficiency from a smaller number of farms but also a smaller number of independent family farms. (Whatever the proportion of independent family farms in the remaining total, the decline in the total number of farms has been so great that family farms must be fewer today than in 1980 or 2000.)

This decline affects the economic independence of southern Wisconsin family farms. The stress that these farms are experiencing from tariffs further threatens their future. See Tariffs Leave Farmers Paying More.

And so, and so, if a WISGOP candidate for state senate visits Whitewater and contends that he supports ‘agricultural viability,’ that candidate might want to look south-southeast to see that the agricultural viability of family farming is now threatened by Mar-a-Lago’s tariff-loving owner.

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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), A New Ethics Ordinance, Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.

Meanwhile, U.S. Mint produces $1 coin with Trump’s face:

The U.S. Mint releases video showing the manufacturing process for $1 coins featuring President Trump, issued to mark the United States’ 250th anniversary in 2026. Critics have raised questions about the design’s legality. While Congress in 2020 passed a law allowing the Treasury Secretary to mint $1 coins to mark the 250th anniversary, that law forbade designs portraying a living person.

Agriculture, Daily Bread, Economy, Elections, Gubernatorial Race 2026, Never Trump, Tariffs, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 9.4.26: Tariffs Leave Farmers Paying More

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see clouds and scattered thunderstorms with a high of 89. Sunrise is 6:22 and sunset is 7:24 for 13 hours 2 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning crescent with 46.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1923, the first U.S.-built rigid airship, the USS Shenandoah, makes its first flight.

USS Shenandoah moored at NAS San Diego, October 1924, Public Domain, Link.

Sarah Godlewski, candidate for lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, now serves as Wisconsin’s secretary of state. Godlewski is an Eau Claire native, and her academic background in conflict resolution, public treasury management, and public administration will serve her well as our next lieutenant governor. She recently spoke with Wisconsin farmers about the challenges they face under tariffs:

I’ve no connection to the Crowley-Godlewski campaign except as one more Wisconsinite who sees the incomparably better opportunity that campaign offers this state.

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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), A New Ethics Ordinance, Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.

Inside the hidden diesel tax being passed along to consumers:

California is home to the highest fuel prices in the U.S. as well as the busiest containership port complex in the nation. So as the Iran war enters its sixth month and petroleum-product prices remain elevated, consumers across the U.S. could be hit with higher prices for a host of everyday products.

Daily Bread, Elections, Gubernatorial Race 2026, Labor, Never Trump, Voting Rights

Daily Bread for 9.3.26: Labor Endorses Crowley (As It Was Sure to Do)

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see clouds and thunderstorms with a high of 87. Sunrise is 6:21 and sunset is 7:25 for 13 hours 4 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 58.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Commission meets at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1976, the Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars.

Viking 2 lander image of Utopia Planitia. NASA Viking image archive, Public Domain, Link.

Less than a month after the Wisconsin August primary, labor leaders aligned with the Democratic Party and the broader democratic coalition have now endorsed David Crowley for governor:

Leaders from American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin, the Service Employees International Union Wisconsin, the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1473 and the Wisconsin Education Association Council announced their organizations’ endorsements of Crowley — acknowledging that even if they don’t agree with the Democratic nominee on every issue, he’s preferable to Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany — who as a member of the Legislature voted for Act 10, the controversial law that stripped collective bargaining rights from most public employees. 

[…]

Crowley touted his family’s union membership and the work he’s done in the past to support Wisconsin labor. 

“Working people, we aren’t asking for a handout,” he said. “We’re asking for a seat at the table. We’re asking for a fair deal. That’s pro-worker, that’s pro-family, and that’s the Wisconsin that I absolutely believe in.”

See Henry Redman, Ahead of Labor Day, unions back Crowley, Wisconsin Examiner, September 3, 2026.

The consolidation of labor support behind Crowley was predictable (and as close to inevitable as one could imagine inevitability being). While it’s true that some of Crowley’s positions are more moderate than the views of many in the broader coalition, there’s no one in that coalition who doesn’t see that Crowley is a far better choice than Trump’s man in Wisconsin. This libertarian blogger supported Crowley in the primary and supports him wholeheartedly in the general election.

(While I would hope that there are no unlawful federal voting restrictions imposed on our state between now and November, there is no wrongful imposition whatever that I would not lawfully overcome to vote for David Crowley this fall. As eligible voters, no creature — whether walking, crawling, or slithering — should stand in our way.)

A debate between David Crowley and Tom Tiffany is set for October 21 at Marquette Law School.

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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), A New Ethics Ordinance, Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.

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

The Moon joins a tea party, Venus reaches peak brilliance, the seasons change, and the Harvest Moon meets up with some planetary neighbors. From September 14 through 20, use the Moon as a guide to spot Antares, the Teapot asterism, and – under especially dark skies – the center of our Milky Way galaxy. On September 18, look low in the west shortly after sunset as Venus reaches peak brilliance for this evening appearance. On September 19, celebrate International Observe the Moon Night! People around the world are invited to look up and connect with our nearest celestial neighbor while learning more about lunar science, exploration, and the many ways the moon has shaped cultures around the world. The September equinox arrives on September 22, marking the start of fall in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere. Then on September 26, the Harvest Moon rises near Saturn, with faint Neptune completing a wide triangle in the sky. Saturn is visible to the unaided eye, while Neptune requires binoculars or a telescope.

Courts, Daily Bread, Law, Litigation, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 9.2.26: An Overview of Major Issues Before the Wisconsin Supreme Court

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 91. Sunrise is 6:20 and sunset is 7:27 for 13 hours 7 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 69.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1945, after years of war across Asia and the Pacific, the Empire of Japan signs the Japanese Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri in the presence of Allied representatives. The worst war in human history having ended, September 2 will always be a good day.

At Wisconsin Watch, Brittany Carloni offers a nice summary of major issues before the Wisconsin Supreme Court this fall (including whether the court will take up some of these issues):

The Wisconsin Supreme Court last November tapped two three-judge panels to hear the cases challenging the congressional maps as unconstitutional. One case, brought by a group of voters, argued the maps are a partisan gerrymander. The other case, brought by the Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy, argues the congressional maps are an anti-competitive gerrymander.

Both panels dismissed the challenges in separate rulings this spring, writing that only the high court could make decisions about the existing congressional maps. The voters and the business group appealed the decisions. 

The issues before the justices in September for the voter-brought case include whether Wisconsin’s constitution allows partisan gerrymandering and, for the Wisconsin Business Leaders case, whether the three-judge panel was wrong in considering “anti-competitive” and partisan gerrymandering as the same argument. 

The court may take a case challenging Act 10:

In late July, the 2nd District Court of Appeals reversed a 2024 Dane County Circuit Court ruling that restored collective bargaining rights for many public sector unions and employees. The unions in the case appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court less than three weeks later.

The issues in this case stem from whether portions of Act 10 — the 2011 law signed by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker that spurred massive protests at the Capitol — that separate public safety and general public employees violate equal protection guarantees in Wisconsin’s constitution.

It’s also possible, but not certain, that Wisconsin’s high court will also consider an appeal in a case directly involving voting hours in Whitewater:

Recently, the high court ordered an expedited process for briefings in an appeal filed by the Democratic National Committee about a 2024 case that sought answers to whether a circuit court has the authority to extend hours at a polling location past 8 p.m.

The Waukesha-based 2nd District Court of Appeals this summer reversed a Walworth County judge’s order from the 2024 presidential election that allowed polling locations at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater campus to stay open until 10:30 p.m. on Election Day. The 2nd District in July reversed the decision, arguing it is up to the Legislature to determine polling hours. 

See Brittany Carloni, Elections, Act 10 top list of hot-button issues facing Wisconsin Supreme Court’s new liberal supermajority, Wisconsin Watch, August 31, 2026. I’d recommend her study in full, as it includes useful, knowldgeable commentary on the direction in which some of these issues may be headed.

Obvious point, however: there may be likelihoods here, but there is no certainty about which cases the court will take, what it may decide, or the reasoning on which its decisions will rest. It’s enough to know that we are living, so to speak, in interesting and momentous times.

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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), A New Ethics Ordinance, Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.

Honest to goodness, bears weren’t bad enough? Now people are facing marmot attacks? Another quadruped species is out of control:

Hikers and campers developed a new line of defense to protect their cars from marmots in the American West. WSJ’s Jim Carlton explains.

Budget, City, Daily Bread, Local Government, Reasoning

Daily Bread for 9.1.26: No, Whitewater’s Budget Did Not Simply Double

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 90. Sunrise is 6:19 and sunset is 7:29 for 13 hours 10 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 80 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Safety and Licensing Review Committee meets at 5 PM and the Whitewater Common Council meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1939, Germany and Slovakia invade Poland, beginning the European phase of World War II.

What does it profit a man to have served on and chaired the old CDA, to have presided over the Whitewater School Board, and to have claimed expertise in finance — only to count the same millions twice and mistake an accounting total for the cost of ordinary city government?

In recent weeks, a false (indeed, fallacious and mendacious) claim about the city has spread: that the city’s budget has doubled. In today’s post, this libertarian blogger will assess that claim, and a memo and presentation that the municipal government has prepared in response.

CLAIM:

“Because again, city budget, total spending in 2021 was $24 million. This year it was $49 million.”

CITY REPLY:

In reply, and as part of tonight’s council agenda packet, the city administration has prepared a multi-page memo and accompanying presentation. See Memorandum to Whitewater Common Council, Claim That the City Budget Has Grown from $25 Million to $50 Million (Sept. 1, 2026).

ASSESSMENT:

The memo refutes the implication that Whitewater’s ordinary operating budget — or the city’s typical property-tax rate — simply doubled. Indeed, “city budget, total spending” is a category error: the claim conflates different measures into one dodgy claim. A year’s city operating budget, one-time expenses, and the amount residents pay in taxes are three separate categories.

Anyone who cared to advance an intellectually honest claim about municipal finance would know that presenting a total funds number as though it measured recurring municipal operations or an ongoing property-tax burden was a false claim. The claim takes an accounting total, slyly implies it’s a tax bill, and sends it into public debate in a gaudy costume.

There are several obvious errors in the claim that ‘city budget, total spending’ doubled.

The city’s property-tax levy in 2026 was $7.74 million, not $50 million. Memo at 1.

Of the larger number of approximately $50 million, much is from unusually large, temporary construction expenditures. Memo at 2.

Some expenses are one-time matters. A year in which a city repaves a road, for example, does not permanently double the city’s budget. It’s a one-time expense that adds a better road while removing a worse one. A year in which a family replaces its roof does not permanently double the family’s cost of living. It’s a one-time expense that keeps the family dry and improves the house’s value.

The $50 million total is itself temporary and is projected to fall to $38 million next year, after some projects are completed. Presentation at 6.

Approximately $5.3 million in interfund transfers is double-counted by the resident—once when transferred in and again when transferred out. Memo at 2.

Double-counting is so inexcusable it’s disqualifying. If this resident’s double-counting was inadvertent, then it was incompetence. If the error was recognized and left uncorrected, then the claim was deceptive. No one should rely on an analysis that counts the same millions twice.

Beyond the budget, there are other concerns that residents, regrettably, face. We must ensure that our city has an effective, consistent ethics policy. We must ensure that our city provides two polling places to serve our electorate properly. These are fundamentally right positions, and as they are fundamentally right, they are to be advanced and defended diligently, zealously, and relentlessly. No matter of budgeting or development, however important, should take precedence.

And yet, and yet, budgets are unquestionably important. Budgets and the development they provide matter to the lives of our sixteen thousand residents. If important — and they are — then they are worth analyzing and considering honestly and accurately.

The claim against the municipal government fails in this regard, and the city’s reply succeeds in the same.

The city’s memo and presentation appear immediately below:

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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), A New Ethics Ordinance, Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.

City, Daily Bread, Ethics, Local Government

Daily Bread for 8.31.26: The Common Council’s Session on an Ethics Complaint

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 89. Sunrise is 6:18 and sunset is 7:30 for 13 hours 12 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 87.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1939, Nazi Germany mounts a false flag attack on the Gleiwitz radio station, creating an excuse to attack Poland the following day, thus starting the Second World War in Europe. (The Gleiwitz assailants were not Polish but were German SS officers wearing Polish uniforms.)

Tonight, the Whitewater Common Council will meet in special session to consider an ethics complaint.

There are, this morning, four remarks to be made on this matter.

First, the council should consider the complaint, filed on February 3, diligently and dispassionately.

Second, the council now considers this matter because of an inability of Whitewater’s Ethics Board to reach a dispositive determination when this same complaint was before that body earlier this year.

Third, the inability of Whitewater’s Ethics Board to reach a dispositive determination lies fundamentally in deficiencies in our municipal code’s provisions for adjudicating ethics complaints. See Whitewater, Wis., Code of Ordinances ch. 7.04 (2026). I’ll demonstrate this third claim in a future post; it’s not hard — it’s an obvious conclusion for any reasonable person who reviews the relevant portions of our current code. These deficiencies do not lie in some dark mystery or conspiracy — those who drafted the code (enacted in 1991) made mistakes of draftsmanship that can be corrected. Correcting these deficiencies should be — and, given the council’s prior discussions along these lines, no doubt will be — a future task of the Whitewater Common Council.

Fourth, a diligent and dispassionate review necessarily requires an adjudication setting aside feelings, favorable or unfavorable, toward any of the named parties in the complaint. It is natural to have feelings toward others, and sometimes those feelings will be strong toward or away from one person or another. It is possible, and necessary, to set those feelings aside when considering an ethics complaint. Reason should govern feeling, and in this and other cases, it can. Although this has too seldom been Whitewater’s practice in recent decades, it should always have been — and can yet become — our standard.

The agenda and an accompanying staff memo appear immediately below:

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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), A New Ethics Ordinance, Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.

Dinosaur footprints become puddles after Colorado rainstorm:

Drone footage captured 150-million-year-old dinosaur footprints filling up with rainwater and turning into pools in Colorado.

America, Daily Bread, Science/Nature, Space, Technology

Daily Bread for 8.30.26: Another Advance in America’s Contributions to Astronomy

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy and humid with a high of 86. Sunrise is 6:17 and sunset is 7:32 for 13 hours 15 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 93.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1916, Ernest Shackleton completes the rescue of all his men stranded on Elephant Island in Antarctica.

Optical Telescope Assembly
Optical Engineer Bente Eegholm performs and inspection of Roman’s primary mirror. This was taken shortly after it was lifted out of the shipping container. Photo Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn.

America’s contributions to humanity’s understanding of the cosmos are considerable, and they continue with the Nancy Grace Roman telescope:

At 7:26 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope blasted off from the Florida coastline and sailed toward the stars. So begins its journey to capture deep, sweeping views of our universe, as far back as when it was only a few hundred million years old.

Named after the agency’s first chief astronomer, Roman is NASA’s latest and greatest cosmic cartographer. The $4.3 billion telescope will use its sharp infrared vision to chart billions of galaxies, as well as hundreds of black holes and the dusty disks circling young stars, where new planets form. It promises a panorama so wide and so crisp that it would take more than half a million high-definition TVs to display in full.

[…]

Part of the telescope’s appeal, however, lies in whatever surprises may be hiding in the data.

“Roman’s vast reach will allow us to find the weird, the rare and the unusual,” Julie McEnery, who leads Roman’s science team, said at an earlier news conference on Saturday. “We will redefine what it means to find a needle in a haystack.”

Roman has about the same infrared resolution as NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, but its field of view is at least a hundred times wider. It is also up to a thousand times faster: In one month, Roman will complete a survey of the sky that could take Hubble a century, Dr. McEnery said.

See Katrina Miller, NASA’s Roman Telescope Leaves Earth to Chart the Stars (‘Astronomers will use data collected by Roman’s wide, deep gaze to study the dark universe and hunt for new worlds’), New York Times, August 30, 2026.

See also Katrina Miller, The Roman Telescope Promises a New Era of Cosmic Exploration (‘NASA’s latest offering to the stars comes from a legacy of great observatories that enabled decades of discovery and unearthed new mysteries about the universe’), August 28, 2026.

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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), A New Ethics Ordinance, Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Launch:

Named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will have a deep, panoramic view of the cosmos, producing images over 100 times larger than our Hubble Space Telescope, but with the same crisp resolution. With its wide view and sophisticated host of tools, Roman will help us discover new exoplanets and untangle cosmic mysteries such as the nature of dark matter and dark energy. It will make its home in orbit 1 million miles away from Earth at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, where gravitational forces balance to keep objects in steady orbits with very little assistance.

Daily Bread, Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 8.29.26: Rising Imports and Falling Exports Show Yet Another Foreseeable Failure of Tariffs

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will see afternoon thunderstorms with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:16 and sunset is 7:34 for 13 hours 18 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing up to 1,392 people and causing $125 billion in damage:

Katrina’s storm surge caused 53 breaches to various flood protection structures in and around the greater New Orleans area, submerging 80% of the city. A June 2007 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers indicated that two-thirds of the flooding was caused by the multiple failures of the city’s flood walls.

If tariffs were to work, then domestic manufacturing would increase and imports would decrease. Unsurprisingly, as increased tariffs run counter to centuries of sound economic theory, they don’t work:

The U.S. goods trade deficit widened to $118.8 billion in July, up $17.4 billion from $101.4 billion in June, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. The reading represented the widest monthly goods deficit recorded since March 2025.

Total imports climbed 3.7% to $318.2 billion, with capital goods accounting for much of the gain after that category surged 11.3%. On the other side of the ledger, exports dropped 2.9% to $199.4 billion, pulled down largely by a steep 11.2% contraction in industrial goods shipments. The expanding gap suggests trade will again subtract from gross domestic product growth, potentially marking a fourth straight quarter of such drag, according to Reuters.

See Cris Tolomia, U.S. goods trade deficit hit 16-month high in July 2026, Quartz, August 27, 2026.

Not long ago, a fanatical devotion to tariffs was supposed to bring America to a new golden age. It was a crackpot theory then, it’s a crackpot theory now, and it will be no more credible tomorrow. These third-rate federal men might as well have crafted their tariff policy by reading tarot cards, using dowsing rods, or consulting a Magic 8 Ball.

See also Another Federal Blow to Wisconsin’s Manufacturers.

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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), A New Ethics Ordinance, Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.

Bears continue their home invasions across America:

Bears are interacting with humans more often across the US after the driest winter in memory wiped out around 90% of their diet, according to bear experts and state wildlife agencies.

Budget, Daily Bread, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 8.28.26: $3,000,000,000.00

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 82. Sunrise is 6:14 and sunset is 7:36 for 13 hours 22 minutes of daylight. The moon was full overnight and is now 99.8 percent illuminated.

On this day in 1944, the Battle of Marseille ends in an Allied victory that liberates the city.

Wisconsin’s state budget surplus continues to grow:

“Wisconsin is now projected to end the current state budget cycle with a surplus of nearly $3 billion – a pot of money that continues to outpace original projections from when it was enacted last year.

The latest revenue update comes three months after a popular bipartisan tax deal offering school funding and individual tax relief collapsed in the state Senate, in part because some who voted against it said it could put the state on shaky ground if it experienced a period of stalled economic growth.”

[…]

“Preliminary calculations from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau released Thursday Aug. 27 showed the state has collected $23.1 billion in tax revenues for the 2025-26 fiscal year – a 3.4% increase from the previous year, and 2% more than what the state expected to bring in..

That puts the state on track to increase its projected $2.5 billion surplus by more than $450 million, to nearly $3 billion at the end of the 2025-27 budget cycle.”

[…]

“An overwhelming majority of Wisconsin adults – 80% – told the Marquette University Law School poll in May that state lawmakers should have passed the bill negotiated by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican legislative leaders that cut property and income taxes, routed more state funds to schools and sent income tax filers a rebate check.”

See Jessie Opoien, Projected budget surplus grows to $3B after bipartisan deal failed, August 28, 2026.

The pressing — yet unanswered — question remains why the state should hold a surplus this large. It’s not sufficient to claim that the state should have some surplus (albeit a modest one as a contingency). This three-billion-dollar surplus plainly rests on a political failure to compromise rather than a specific, rational policy explanation. A decisive election outcome would serve Wisconsin well by breaking the political logjam that has led the state to hoard so much despite Wisconsinites’ unaddressed needs.

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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), A New Ethics Ordinance, Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.

Last night’s partial lunar eclipse, as seen from Spain:

Watch a timelapse of the August 27–28, 2026, partial lunar eclipse unfold, filmed from our mobile observatory in Seville, Spain. At maximum eclipse, almost the entire Moon moved into the darkest part of Earth’s shadow, leaving only a small sliver brightly lit while much of the Moon took on a reddish color.

Accidents, Cats, Weird Tales

Friday Catblogging: Furniture Haulers Accidentally Haul a Cat

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Reunited, and it purrs so good:

Mike the Cat was accidentally hauled away with some old furniture. Afterward, when his owner, Neal Augenstein, noticed that Mike was missing, he began a search that included contacting the furniture movers:

“They said our couches were still in the warehouse, so I rushed over there,” Augenstein said. “Two of the three couches were there, but the ripped one had stayed on the truck and been sent to the I-66 Transfer Station, which is where recycling is done before trash is eventually sent to the landfill.”

The WTOP reporter continued his investigation at the transfer station, where workers said someone saw a cat Monday and that animal control came to collect it.

“You can imagine my heart skipped a beat,” Augenstein said. 

But the Fairfax Animal Shelter, two minutes down the road from the transfer station, told Augenstein the cat had been moved to a shelter in Lorton.

At the second shelter, “a very nice employee” gave Augenstein some details from the cat’s intake report. 

“Someone at the transfer station saw the cat fall when the stuff was being dumped at the landfill and called animal services,” Augenstein recounted. “An officer found Mike in an abandoned part of the building, hiding in a trash pile. He was hissing, obviously very scared.”

Mike the Cat, who has a microchip, was then reunited with a relieved Augenstein.

“This morning, when I woke up, Mike was lying across my chest while I was sleeping, and now, as I’m working, he’s lying by the keyboard, yelling, getting belly rubs and doing happy drools,” he said.

See Jessica Kronzer, His cat was mistakenly tossed with an old couch, so this WTOP reporter tracked him down, WTOP, August 27, 2026.

America, City, Daily Bread, Education, University, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 8.27.26: The Value of a UW-Whitewater Education (And of Other Schools Across this Continent)

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 6:14 and sunset is 7:37 for 13 hours 23 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 99.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1832, Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.

What is the value of an education? It’s a question that, considered carefully, should bring no simple answer. Not one value, but many values; not one benefit, but many benefits. Perhaps it is enough to suggest that one studies to cultivate oneself and, in doing so, contribute more fully to one’s family, friends, and community.

This libertarian blogger is not an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, although I have learned to read and write, and have been to school now and again. Of UW-Whitewater particularly, that beautiful campus sits not far from my home, and it offers an education in many subjects, among them humanities, social sciences, and the natural sciences. Not one field, not one path, but many fields and many paths.

How disappointing to read that someone from far away, a consultant who describes himself as ‘Head of Growth’ (honest to goodness!) at Leland, a ‘marketplace for ambitious people’ (a tagline suitable only as parody) writes that the benefit of a UW-Whitewater education is that, from among thousands, perhaps a few might one day become chief executive officers.

Worse, this shallow gentleman even dismisses UW-Whitewater as a place of which he “would guess most people outside of Wisconsin don’t know [that school] exists.” No and no again. Everyone who attends — and is thereby enlightened and ennobled — knows. Is that not enough for a lifetime, for any lifetime?

How disappointing that the publication of a local community foundation thought this observation was anything other than an ignorant dismissal of education’s fundamental value. Worse, can those promoting this supposed praise not see that, in truth, it denigrates and diminishes education on our campus and other campuses? To that community foundation, one may pass along this message: no one builds a community’s solid foundation on shallow observations like this.

That’s not the value of a UW-Whitewater education or of an education at any other school. Education on our campus and on others is more than a dicey lottery to become a chief executive officer, chief financial officer, chief marketing officer, chief branding officer, whatever. In many ways, education is a lifelong pursuit in which ‘the journey is the destination.’ It is from the pursuit of higher and deeper things that a practical outcome is both possible and, truly, worthy of possibility.

I’ll end with a scene from a film, a scene that, in the idiom of our time, ‘hits hard.’ The scene, however, nicely expresses my rejection of education as merely an improbable executive opportunity.

In the 2021 film Pig, Nicolas Cage portrays a formerly renowned chef who uses a truffle pig to find truffles that he then sells to restaurants in San Francisco. (The truffles bring a high price.) When the pig disappears, he goes looking for the animal, and during his search he encounters a high-concept chef who once worked for him in a subordinate role. Cage’s character confronts and questions the other chef about that other man’s superficial choices.

A compelling scene with a principled message from a fine film:

Care well and deeply — study well and comprehensively.

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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), A New Ethics Ordinance, Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.