FREE WHITEWATER

Daily Bread, Economy, Employment

Daily Bread for 4.27.26: A Difficult Job Market Regrettably Gets Less Attention

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will see thunderstorms with a high of 66. Sunrise is 5:54 and sunset is 7:51 for 13 hours 57 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 83.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1978, John Ehrlichman, a former aide to President Nixon, is released from the Federal Correctional Institution, Safford, Arizona, after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes.

There’s solid evidence that we have a difficult job market, and there’s an obvious reason the difficult employment market gets less attention than concerns about prices.

First, the job market — new entrants to the workforce are in the toughest job market since COVID-19:

This year’s grads are trying to begin their careers in the toughest job market since the COVID-19 pandemic, which experts say has been driven by a broader slowdown in hiring.

Nicholas Jolly, a labor economist and associate professor of economics at Marquette University, said the labor market is “not nearly as hot” as it was in the years after the pandemic, which saw strong job growth as the economy reopened.

“We had a very tight labor market post-pandemic,” he said. “It’s now softened as markets have adjusted.”

Unemployment has remained low at 4.3 percent nationally in March and 3.4 percent in Wisconsin in February, the most recent months with available data. But the rate of job openings has been nearly cut in half since its peak in 2022.

“If the overall labor market is getting softer, it stands to reason that it’s going to get softer for entry-level jobs as well,” Jolly said.

See Joe Schulz, Wisconsin’s class of 2026 entering the workforce in the toughest job market since COVID-19 (‘Economists say AI isn’t yet a major factor in the tough entry-level job market’), April 27, 2026.

The contrast between concerns over a weak employment market and concerns over higher prices is evident. Polls consistently show respondents’ worries over higher prices (regardless of why those prices are higher) top respondents’ economic concerns. Here’s pollster and data analyst G. Elliott Morris on prices:

[P]eople still mostly just see high prices for things and get upset about that. And fair enough! My theory is that price levels account for much to most of the “puzzle” of why consumer sentiment is lower than you would predict based on the historical relationship between CPI, unemployment, the cost of money and etc.

See G. Elliott Morris, The mystery variable that explains stubbornly low consumer sentiment, Strength in Numbers, April 12, 2026.

Morris’s work shows that prices drive much of the sentiment about the economy’s direction.

Whether prices and inflation are the right economic focus is different from whether it’s a predictable, understandable focus. As a matter of overall sentiment, a difficult labor market is experienced most particularly by new labor force entrants, while higher prices are experienced by a greater number of Americans.

This does not suggest that a tough labor market matters less. A challenging labor market for new entrants may have worse economic consequences than a relatively low level of inflation, even if inflation is perceived as more significant.

The greater perception of inflation’s harm does explain, however, why there will be more attention (and lower consumer sentiment) about inflation than about a slow employment market.

And yet, and yet… both elevated inflation and a slow job market for new workers are signs of a poorly functioning economy.

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, ‘What Ails, What Heals’ Reviewed, and Outcome Driven Argumentation.

Ships wait in the Strait of Hormuz as waterway remains blocked:

Coffee, Comedy, Daily Bread, Drink, Food

Daily Bread for 4.26.26: Grading the Coffee Market

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 65. Sunrise is 5:56 and sunset is 7:50 for 13 hours 54 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 75.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

By IAEA Imagebank – 02790015, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link.

On this day in 1986, the Chernobyl disaster occurs near the (now-abandoned) industrial city of Pripyat in the Soviet Union.

Why This One Coffee Tasting Impacts the Price of Coffee:

Several levels above the New York Stock Exchange trading floor, a small group of elite coffee graders decides which beans meet the strict standards of the global commodity market. WSJ got an exclusive look inside the room where expert graders sniff, slurp and spit to set the global benchmark for coffee.

Chapters:
0:00 The coffee grader in the NYSE
1:01 Grading the coffee
3:57 What the coffee in the NYSE represents
5:28 The coffee market

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, ‘What Ails, What Heals’ Reviewed, and Outcome-Driven Opposition.

Meanwhile, at the Brooklyn Coffee Shop:

Click image to play video

This libertarian blogger is a coffee drinker and, if there were a Brooklyn Coffee Shop, I’d be sure to visit often. These Instagram Reels are part of a series with @winnie_thepooj as Thyme and @darrylgenejr as Cale. The series recently won a well-deserved Webby Award in the Video & Film, Comedy category.

Daily Bread, Gubernatorial Race 2026, Politics, Tommy Thompson, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 4.25.26: More Silly Speculation About Tommy Thompson

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny in the afternoon with a high of 65. Sunrise is 5:57 and sunset is 7:48 for 13 hours 51 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 66.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 404 BC, Admiral Lysander and King Pausanias of Sparta blockade Athens and bring the Second Peloponnesian War to a successful conclusion.

For reasons unknown to sensible people, every so often the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will report on a possible Tommy Thompson run for governor this year. See Assessing Teasers and Speculation About Wisconsin Elections for 2026. Holy moly, the Journal Sentinel is back for more:

“U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany IS the only major Republican in the guv race but former GOP governor Tommy Thompson is still considering jumping in the race. And yes, Thompson would be 85 if he took office in January. That isn’t a hurdle to Thompson. He told me Thursday: “I know I could win, but I don’t know if I want to get involved.”

It hasn’t been unusual for Thompson to consider joining statewide races since he left the East Wing 25 years ago but there appears to be a bit more substance to the chatter this time. A poll popped up recently surveying potential voters’ thoughts on Thompson. Thompson told me he heard the results were “encouraging” for another Thompson candidacy but that he remains undecided about joining the race.”

See Molly Beck and Jessie Opoien, Will Tommy Thompson return with a run for governor? | Politics mailbag, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 24, 2026.

Here’s a better answer: It’s improbable that he’ll run, and it’s impossible that he’d win.

While it’s true that Tom Tiffany isn’t charismatic, hardly anyone other than the man Tommy Thompson sees each morning in the mirror is eager for a race with an octogenarian candidate.

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, ‘What Ails, What Heals’ Reviewed, and Outcome-Driven Opposition.

Wildfires tear across northern Japan:

Residents of hundreds of homes in Iwate, northern Japan, have been ordered to evacuate after wildfires broke out on Wednesday.

Daily Bread, Legislature, Politics, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 4.24.26: Wisconsin Capitol Departs from National Security Trends

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 67. Sunrise is 5:59 and sunset is 7:47 for 13 hours 48 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 55.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1916, Ernest Shackleton and five men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition launch a lifeboat from uninhabited Elephant Island in the Southern Ocean to organize a rescue for the crew of the sunken Endurance.

While ‘locked Capitol doors and more cash for security are the new normal after the Minnesota assassination,’ Wisconsin remains in the small minority of states without additional precautions:

Nearly a year after the assassination of a Minnesota legislative leader, lawmakers across the U.S. have worked to fortify security in state capitols and improve safeguards when officials are in their communities.

The changes have followed a rise in political violence nationwide that included the stunning assassination last June of Rep. Melissa Hortman, the top Democratic leader in the Minnesota House, and the September killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was speaking at a college in Utah.

In Minnesota, most doors at the state Capitol are now locked, and people entering must go through weapons detectors. People entering the visitors’ galleries to watch floor debates must go through a second set of detectors.

[…]

But some states have balked at making it harder to access the halls of power. Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican who knew Hortman, resisted efforts to install metal detectors in his state, saying he didn’t want to “fortify” the Capitol. Wisconsin’s is one of 11 state capitols that don’t have metal detectors, a state audit found.

See Steve Karnowski and Scott Bauer, Locked Capitol doors and more cash for security are the new normal after Minnesota assassination, Associated Press, April 24, 2026.

Doubtless — doubtless — in ordinary times of dispassionate political discussion one would prefer easy access to public buildings. These are not, however, ordinary times of dispassionate political discussion.

(These security measures elsewhere do not prevent public access to public spaces; they simply delay access slightly while scanning for weapons.)

Despite a preference for the least restrictive environment possible, Wisconsin’s decision to defy the security trends of nearly forty other states presents both practical and political calculations.

A practical (humane) calculation: Wisconsinites, however unique in many ways, are not so different from their fellow Americans that a few might not be inclined in character toward violent action. Seeing that state populations across America are mostly alike, and that there has been violence elsewhere one might sensibly decide to add security in Wisconsin as other state legislatures have done. The cost of the measures would be small against a possible loss of life.

A political calculation: Even if a legislator were not worried for himself — or even most people — he might still conclude that in the (unlikely) event of violence toward anyone for lack of security measures prevalent elsewhere, he and his caucus would be, rightly, blamed for inaction. The cost of the measures would be small against the political criticism.

Odd (although perhaps not so odd for him) that Speaker Vos has not made either calculation in favor of additional safety measures in politically turbulent times.

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, ‘What Ails, What Heals’ Reviewed, and Outcome Driven Opposition.

This robot can beat you (and pros) at table tennis:

This robot isn’t just playing table tennis — it’s sometimes beating human pros, a major leap for machines in the real world.

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, April 28, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Marty Supreme

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Tuesday, April 28 at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Marty Supreme @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Period Drama/Comedy/Sports

Rated R (language, violence) 2 hours, 29 minutes (2025)

1952: 23 year–old Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) struggles and strives to be the world champion best table tennis player. His obstacles: his mother (Fran Drescher), his pregnant girlfriend, an affair with an older woman (Gwyneth Paltrow), and the current Japanese best player in the world. 9 Oscar nominations including Best Film and Actor (Chalamet); Winner: Golden Globe Best Actor.

One can find more information about Marty Supreme at the Internet Movie Database.

Business, City, Daily Bread, Development, Employment, Local Government

Daily Bread for 4.23.26: Council Approves Sale of Business Park Lots for Summerset Marine

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:00 and sunset is 7:46 for 13 hours 46 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 43.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1985, Coca-Cola changes its formula and releases New Coke. The response is overwhelmingly negative, and the original formula is back on the market in less than three months.

Development takes both commercial and residential forms, and on Tuesday, April 21, the Whitewater Common Council unanimously approved an offer from Lifetime Manufacturing, LLC (d/b/a Summerset Marine Construction) to purchase business park lots for a new 150,000 square-foot facility, representing about $15 million dollars in assessed value when completed. The facility would bring 90 jobs initially and about another 60 jobs within several years.

(Summerset now operates in multiple buildings outside the city, and would consolidate their operations within Whitewater.)

The Council’s discussion of the sale to Summerset is embedded above. This sale benefits both Summerset and Whitewater — it is, as all good deals are, beneficial to both parties.

It’s good news for Whitewater.

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, ‘What Ails, What Heals’ Reviewed, and Outcome Driven Opposition.

Boston Marathon runners help another runner who collapsed finish the race:

Ajay Haridasse was close to finishing the Boston Marathon when his legs gave out. But as he struggled to get up, two other runners came along, lifted him up and helped him across the finish line.

Daily Bread, Open Government, UW System, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 4.22.26: The UW Regents’ Category Error on Open Government

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 73. Sunrise is 6:02 and sunset is 7:45 for 13 hours 43 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 33 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Comprehensive Plan Advisory Work Group meets at 4 PM.

On this day in 1970, the first Earth Day is celebrated.

What if someone said ‘This contract is legally sound, but is it gluten-free?‘ We’d know right away that the person asking about gluten had committed a category error, as the category of thinking about a contract’s sufficiency does not include consideration of the proteins found in cereal grains. A confusion like that, however rare, is easily noticed.

There’s another kind of category error that’s more common: misunderstanding different natures of private and public entities. Someone might say, for example, that public universities should have the same secrecy rights as private corporations because both are merely ‘organizations.’

When justifying the dismissal of Jay Rothman, here’s how Regent Timothy Nixon explained the System’s position:

Nixon said the way Rothman’s departure was handled, including the rejected offer that he retire or resign, is similar to what is done for CEOs of large corporations.

“This is no different than moving on to a new quarterback, no matter what you thought of the previous quarterback and what they did,” Nixon said.

See Scott Bauer, Universities of Wisconsin regents cite disputes over AI and other topics in president’s firing, Associated Press, April 9, 2026.

One doesn’t have to hold a brief for Rothman (as this libertarian blogger does not) to see that Nixon conflates private and public entities in his analogy. The Universities of Wisconsin are neither a large corporation nor a private NFL team, but rather a publicly-established, publicly-funded educational system. The Regents do not represent in their roles as regents either large corporations or football teams (however they might wish to see themselves that way).

Because the Regents act in the name of the public (and as regents can act in no other way), the public has a right to see how major decisions are made. This right includes notice from the public institution (not merely a leak from one of its employees) explaining adequately beforehand major institutional changes.

While it’s true that ordinary personnel changes need not be justified, this was no ordinary personnel change. There should be a presumption of openness in matters with highly placed public leaders like the System’s president. Reporting about Rothman’s possible dismissal from his public position before the Regents took action opened the door to greater candor in the moment, not simply afterward. (As a practical matter, this dismissal was handled too defensively.)

In any event, after-the-fact announcements and justifications fall short of the transparency a public institution requires. (Indeed, a private institution need not make any announcement about a leader’s dismissal save whatever stockholders might find sufficient.)

That Rothman could be dismissed is not in question; that he should have been dismissed is a matter on which others may ruminate.

That this dismissal was handled in violation of principles of transparency (and awkwardly as a matter of simple public relations) is clear.

See also The Secretive Effort to Force the UW President Out of His Job.

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, ‘What Ails, What Heals’ Reviewed, and Outcome Driven Opposition.

Hot-air balloon with 13 people lands in California back yard:

An enormous hot-air balloon with a pilot and passengers in the basket landed on a small plot of grass at a home in Temecula, California, on 18 April.

City, Daily Bread, Development, Economics, Free Markets, Housing

Daily Bread for 4.21.26: A Bit About Markets and Dynamism

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 71. Sunrise is 6:03 and sunset is 7:44 for 13 hours 41 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 22 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Forward Design Workshop Open House is open from 4:30-6:30 PM and the Whitewater Common Council meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 753 BC, Romulus is traditionally said to have founded Rome.

Last night, a clear majority of the Whitewater Common Council voted to support the Stonehaven development project to bring fourteen owner-occupied, single-family homes to Whitewater. This libertarian blogger supported the proposal. See The Stonehaven Single-Family Home Project Merits Support.

A city that has had an inadequate single-family home market (despite a desire for single-family homes) is a poorly functioning market. That’s disappointing, yet if one does not acknowledge the disappointment, one cannot address it. Of course, one would prefer that these market desires be fulfilled only through the private market. For Whitewater, however, one quickly sees the gap between need or desire and effective demand. See Affordability Discussions Define a Key Component of Economic Demand.

Whitewater, through government policies over the last generation (principally, but not exclusively, through zoning liberalization) improved opportunities for student-rental operators, but made no similarly vigorous effort in the last decade to advance single-family residences. Past policymakers favored some properties over others. Liberalization for some residences, for example, was only reasonable with commensurate liberalization (or support of some kind) for other types of housing. Instead, for new residential construction these recent years, it’s been not here, not there, not this, not that.

(Indeed, those who now tout their private-sector accomplishments might wish to remember that it was the presence of a publicly–funded university that fueled those accomplishments.)

It’s simply false to say that past economic activity in Whitewater occurred in a wholly free market of purely private transactions. Standing pat on uneven ground leaves this community tilting to one side — insisting on the same way forever leaves Whitewater with a distorted market. ‘The same way forever’ is characteristic of stagnant communities; ‘the same way forever’ preserves past misjudgments.

What free markets achieve (especially if uninhibited) is a dynamic, spontaneous order. They are by their nature creative, often surprisingly so. They offer within this city thousands of interactions between people each day, unregulated and unmediated.

What, then, to do when government-favored activity in one sector (student-rental properties) has regrettably crowded out and limited possibilities for another vital sector (single-family homes or other kinds of rental property)? In conditions of past market distortion, Whitewater will have to make her way as best she can to reform and then bolster opportunities for a less slanted market. Those who don’t want this now, shouldn’t have advanced so much of only that then.

Stonehaven is a creative solution that will begin to redress past imbalances.

There’s something telling and surprising when a few residents (mostly the same few) contend that they’ve never heard of solutions like this. Perhaps they haven’t, but then Whitewater is more than the same few people, and Wisconsin is more than the same few people, and America is more than the same few people. We are a dynamic and creative society. All around us, one finds our society’s ingenuity, if only one would look.

It is through necessitated creativity now that Whitewater will find her way to a more balanced residential market.

This was a sound, solid decision for our city.

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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): The Regents, Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, ‘What Ails, What Heals’ Reviewed, and Outcome Driven Opposition.

Feisty house cat faces two bears:

Two bears showed up, and Scooter the cat said “absolutely not.”

City, Daily Bread, Housing

Daily Bread for 4.20.26: The Stonehaven Single-Family Home Project Merits Support

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:05 and sunset is 7:43 for 13 hours 38 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 13.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6 PM and the Library Board at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1836, Congress passes an act creating the Wisconsin Territory (an act that would go into effect on July 3 of that year).

Whitewater, like other communities, has controversies over housing. Also like other communities — but often with greater intensity here in town — some of the claims about a housing proposal will be misguided.

The Whitewater Common Council will consider tonight the Stonehaven proposal for fourteen, owner-occupied, single-family homes on land that now sits vacant, as it has remained for so many years.

The question for tonight’s session: Can the Whitewater Common Council, after months of the proposal’s approval at several prior public meetings, craft with the project’s developer a plan to bring these owner-occupied, single-family homes to Whitewater?

Some of the claims about the Stonehaven project are the result of inaccurate information. A few of the claims made against the project, notably at meetings in February, have been oddly, even recklessly, overwrought.1 (There’s no surprise in this state of affairs. Those watching the months of meetings and discussions about the project would know that some of the opposition to the project has been outcome-driven: a series of claims at each moment, often disconnected from each other, simply designed to prevent these single-family homes by hook or crook.2)

A review of the council packet for tonight’s meeting provides answers to questions about the project. See City of Whitewater, Common Council Meeting Packet, Apr. 20, 2026.

1. Open, Public Consideration. Whitewater’s public bodies have considered and advanced this project previously following several open-session discussions:

On August 19, 2025, the Common Council approved the sale of two Community Development Authority owned parcels to Stonehaven Development. On December 18, 2025, the CDA reviewed and recommended the proposed project. On February 17, 2026, the Whitewater Common Council approved requested rezoning on these properties. On March 19, 2026, the CDA then recommended the development agreement to the Common Council for approval. On April 9, 2026, the Common Council considered the development agreement, and again tonight the development agreement is before the city in a public meeting.

There’s no secret here; this has been a recorded public process, repeatedly and thoroughly reviewed. Whitewater’s not Roswell, New Mexico: there’s no reason to insinuate that there’s a plot to conceal the Stonehaven proposal’s details as though officials were concealing the bodies of tiny extraterrestrials.3

2. The Interest Rate. It’s false to contend that tonight’s meeting aims to set a zero-interest rate for the project: the entire purpose of tonight’s meeting was, following a decision by the council on April 9, to seek a different solution. See Video beginning at 3:10:06, Whitewater Common Council, April 9, 2026. Anyone who had followed the discussion on April 9 would know this.

To contend otherwise after April 9 would be either a misunderstanding or an intentional distortion of the actions and deliberations of the Whitewater Common Council.

3. Financial Review. Ehlers, an independent, third-party financial advising firm, has reviewed this project thoroughly. See Common Council Meeting Packet, Apr. 20, 2026, at 71-86.

This is an incremental plan, designed as a revolving fund in which as homes are built in stages, the city is recompensed from the developer at each stage.

This is a well-reviewed proposal.

4. Overcoming Past Market Failures. This libertarian blogger is, by the very nature of being libertarian, a free-market man. And yet, and yet, as I wrote recently on the nature of economic demand, there are instances, undeniably, of free-market failure:

Nothing about correctly noting the vast powers of free markets for efficient coordination (superior both morally and practically to command schemes) denies that market action depends on effective demand. No rational economic arrangement runs on magic.

Whitewater is a community that, from the Great Recession through to this present decade (that is, 2007-2020) has suffered from market inadequacies of owner-occupied, single-family housing. I wish it were otherwise, and yet intellectual honesty compels one to see a problem clearly.

Whitewater’s student rental operators benefitted greatly during this time, but ordinary residents seeking single-family homes were left (far) behind. Policymakers of the last decade should have addressed these needs but did not. The only worse outcome than too few single-family homes over the last twenty years would be too few single-family homes for the next ten.

One returns to this question for the Whitewater Common Council: In a city of nearly sixteen thousand, where there’s a lack of adequate homes, can a plan to bring about even fourteen, single-family owner-occupied homes at a reasonable rate be crafted? Our council members easily possess the ability to arrive at a deal for these needed homes. If even this cannot be done — and of course it can reasonably and sensibly be done — then nothing can be done in this beleaguered market with an under-supply of owner-occupied, single-family houses.

A deal with this private developer can — and should — be reached tonight.

The full, thorough (indeed exhaustive) agenda packet for the session tonight appears below:

MEET-Packet-a58fc668b52f4d15b7d3e0772b716d94Download

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  1. See Empty Allegations Against a Development Project, FREE WHITEWATER, Feb. 12, 2026. ↩︎
  2. Ahab pursued a whale with less fervor. Some pursuers, fictional or real, lose perspective in their pursuits. ↩︎
  3. It’s improbable that any bodies of tiny extraterrestrials were found in 1947 at Roswell. It would, however, be quite something if a few living creatures from another world landed in Whitewater. After a thousand other questions, someone might then ask: So, how do you manage social media misinformation on your planet? ↩︎

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): The Regents, Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, ‘What Ails, What Heals’ Reviewed, and Outcome Driven Opposition.

America, Daily Bread, Economy

Daily Bread for 4.19.26: Consumer Sentiment’s Steep Decline Charted

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:06 and sunset is 7:41 for 13 hours 35 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 6.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1775, the Revolutionary War begins during the Battles of Lexington and Concord with a victory for American minutemen and other militia over British forces, later referred to as the “shot heard round the world.”

Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll, writes in PollsAndVotes about the steep drop in consumer sentiment from the first Trump administration to the second:

The comparison of consumer sentiment in the first Trump administration and in the second is the point of this post. The chart highlights the first term up to the 2018 midterms and the second term so far. The average sentiment in the first 23 months of term 1 was 97.5. The average so far in term 2 is 55.5, with the most recent reading at 47.6. That is a 42 point drop from average to average and a 49.9 point drop from average to current reading.

To state the obvious: economic sentiment was a tremendous advantage in the first Trump term and is a tremendous burden in the second.

Sentiment plummeted when the Covid pandemic arrived in early 2020, then began to recover into 2021 before the spike in inflation in the second half of 2021 drove sentiment to the then all-time low of 50 in June 2022. Sentiment recovered somewhat through most of the 2nd half of the Biden administration though it dipped in the run-up to the 2024 election. That persistent negative view of the economy was a constant weight on Biden’s support and ultimately on Harris’ vote.

During Trump’s second term the trend has been sharply down from a peak of 74.0 in December 2024 immediately after his reelection, to 64.7 in the first month of the new term with irregular month to month movements and an overall downward trend.

The low consumer sentiment index means the economy is virtually guaranteed to remain the top concern for voters, and therefore the issue all candidates have to discuss (and claim to fix, with more or less persuasiveness). Above all, this economic gloom will be the atmosphere of the election.

See Charles Franklin, Second Term Worse Than the First, PollsAndVotes, April 10, 2026.

Stark, very stark. While I’ve followed reporting on the recent plunge in consumer sentiment, the comparison via chart of 2017-2021 to 2025-2026 shows how sour consumers sentiment has become.

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): The Regents, Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, ‘What Ails, What Heals’ Reviewed, and Outcome Driven Opposition.

There are happy times somewhere — International Kite Festival kicks off in Berck-sur-Mer on French Atlantic coast:

Hundreds of participants are expected from all over the world for the week-long event that started on April 18 and ends on April 26. Hundreds of kites will be flying throughout the week on the windy beaches of Berck.

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

Daily Bread for 4.18.26: Wisconsin’s Changing Weather

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 62. Sunrise is 6:08 and sunset is 7:40 for 13 hours 32 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1938, Superman debuts in Action Comics #1 (cover dated June 1938).

Our weather is changing because the state’s climate is changing:

On the same day some Wisconsin residents were evacuating their homes due to flooding and others were cleaning up from widespread storms and tornadoes, researchers predicted the state’s climate will continue to grow warmer and wetter with more frequent and intense storms.

Those are among findings of the 2026 report from the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts, or WICCI. The initiative’s co-directors provided an overview of the latest assessment to the Natural Resources Board on Wednesday.

State Climatologist Steve Vavrus, co-director of WICCI, noted average temperatures in Wisconsin have risen about 3 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1950s. The report found the last two decades were the warmest on record, and the state has also seen a 17 percent increase in annual precipitation.

Vavrus said the 2010s were the wettest decade on record with the most extreme weather in the state’s history. During that period, more than 20 daily rainfalls qualified as a 100-year storm, or a storm that has a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year.

“Thus far, six years through the 2020s, we’re on pace to have the warmest decade on record. And we already know that 2024 was the warmest year in Wisconsin’s history,” Vavrus said, noting it was also the hottest year recorded in the nation and worldwide.

The report found a warmer climate has led to “unusually pronounced” extreme weather in recent years. And that’s resulted in rising costs. Between 1980 and 2024, Wisconsin has been affected by 63 weather and climate disasters that each exceeded $1 billion in losses.

See Danielle Kaeding, Wisconsin will see warmer, wetter weather — and more extremes, report finds, Wisconsin Public Radio, April 16, 2026.

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): The Regents, Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, ‘What Ails, What Heals’ Reviewed.

This robot hand detaches and walks by itself:

Human hands are incredibly dexterous tools — but they have their limits. They are asymmetric, they only have a single thumb, and fundamentally, they’re connected to our arms. But none of that poses a problem for this robot claw. Its symmetrical design means it can seamlessly approach different tasks without having to twist to find the right angle, six fingers mean the design can juggle multiple objects at the same time and, if needed, it can simply leave its arm behind, perfect for dangerous or hard-to-reach places. Read the paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4146…