FREE WHITEWATER

Agriculture, Culture, Daily Bread, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 8.11.25: For Wisconsin Dairy, It’s Fewer Farms But More Milk

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will see partly cloudy skies with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:57 and sunset is 8:02, for 14 hours, 5 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 93.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Plan and Architectural Review Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1929, Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.

We’re America’s Dairyland, and in America’s Dairyland of 2025, it’s more milk from fewer farms:

Since 2000, Wisconsin has lost more than 70% of its dairy herds.

As of Aug. 1, there were 5,222 licensed milk cow herds in the state, according to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. That’s down nearly 26% from only five years ago, and the lowest point on record.

Milk production has actually risen as the remaining farms have become larger and more efficient. The amount of milk produced per cow has also gone up.

But the loss of small and mid-size farms has harmed rural areas where they were the lifeblood of their communities. Consolidation of the nation’s food production into fewer and larger operations worries advocates for smaller farms that represent economic diversity.

See Rick Barrett, Wisconsin dairy farm count keeps falling amid hard times. Here are some farmers who persevere, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 11, 2025.

Economic change and cultural change would seem, for many, to run in opposite directions. Practical gains come at a sentimental loss. (Some of the same tensions are evident in opposition to solar power in rural areas. (The closer to one’s community, however — as with solar power for Whitewater — the more intense the sentiment, and the more likely that sentiment leads those who insist they “don’t take a position” to do exactly that when remixing and emphasizing arguments from only one side of a question.)

International news organizations (Reuters, below) cover area weather after cars abandoned in Wisconsin flooding:

Floodwaters submerged vehicles following severe storms in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States.

Daily Bread, Economy, Employment, Far-Right Populism, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 8.10.25: Wisconsin’s Manufacturing Employment Faces Decline

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see thunderstorms with a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:56 and sunset is 8:03, for 14 hours, 7 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1519, Ferdinand Magellan‘s five ships set sail from Seville to circumnavigate the globe. The Basque second-in-command Juan Sebastián Elcano will complete the expedition after Magellan’s death in the Philippines.

As hiring in America is in decline, and Wisconsin is part of America, it’s probable that what ails America will ail Wisconsin, too:

New job numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor paint a stark picture of America’s job market — and a University of Wisconsin-Madison economist said he expects upcoming Wisconsin jobs numbers to show a similar trend in manufacturing jobs. 

The Labor Department released a report Aug. 1 showing weaker than expected job growth for July, with 73,000 jobs added. 

But it was the report’s revision of May and June job creation numbers to under 19,000 for May and 14,000 jobs in June that painted a weaker picture of the U.S. economy — and led to President Donald Trump firing the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

…

The jobs report published early this month found a decline of 11,000 jobs nationally in manufacturing — an industry that Wisconsin has historically relied on. 

[Professor of public affairs and economics at UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs Menzie] Chinn said this decline is to be expected based on how nations like China responded after Trump placed smaller tariffs on other countries in 2018.

“I wonder why it took so long for it to show up,” Chinn said. 

Chinn added that the uncertainty from negotiated tariffs are taking a toll on Wisconsin businesses.

“If you have to decide whether you want to build a new factory or buy new equipment that’s going to be used to service exports, but you don’t know whether the markets for those exports will be there or you don’t know if you’ll be cost competitive … you’re frozen on both sides,” Chinn said.

See Trevor Hook, Economist expects Wisconsin manufacturing jobs to show decline amid poor national numbers (‘Economist Menzie Chinn tells ‘Wisconsin Today’ that new job numbers show a ‘drastic change’ in the trajectory of the nation’s jobs market’), Wisconsin Public Radio, August 6, 2025.

Today’s populism isn’t about economics, so when the populists see economic figures that they don’t like, they simply deny their accuracy, and advance their own fantastical economic theories. They’ll always have a rationalization, a ready-made excuse, to change the subject. One can find all sorts of ignorant, indeed, ludicrous economic claims the populists make, and it doesn’t matter much to them because for the die-hards and dead-enders, the primary goal is not economic at all.

Much better, for them, to deny economic measurements, or to fabricate their own, and get back to what matters most to them. Their task is cultural: to inflict retribution against their perceived cultural enemies. Any contention, claim, or argument they make about economics is simply a means to return to that primary, essential task.

Bad policy reaches many parts of the economy — Tariffs to Make Dorm Room Essentials More Expensive:

Back-to-college items like microwaves, table fans, bedding and some school supplies have been hit with big tariff increases.

Animals, Daily Bread, Weird Tales, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 8.9.25: Wisconsin Bear with Jar Stuck on Head Freed After 12 Days

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 91. Sunrise is 5:55 and sunset is 8:04, for 14 hours, 10 minutes of daytime. The moon is full with 99.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1173, construction of the campanile of the Cathedral of Pisa (now known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa) begins; it will take two centuries to complete.

Panoramic view (from left to right) of the campanile (Leaning Tower of Pisa), the Pisa Cathedral, and the Pisa Baptistry in the Piazza dei Miracoli. By Arne Müseler / www.arne-mueseler.com, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, Link.

Wisconsin bear with jar stuck on head freed:

A bear seen wandering around northern Wisconsin with a jar on its head has been freed, relocated and released.

Wisconsin Life | Walk in the woods with an old growth guide:

Forest guide John Bates leads educational walks through Van Vliet Hemlocks State Natural Area, one of Wisconsin’s rare old growth forests. Bates explains how fallen trees become nurse logs, supporting new growth of everything from towering hemlocks to tiny mushrooms in this 400-year-old ecosystem.

Daily Bread, Elections, Gubernatorial Race 2026, Populists, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 8.8.25: Dispatching Three Ludicrous Claims About Wisconsin Politics

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 89. Sunrise is 5:54 and sunset is 8:06, for 14 hours, 12 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 99.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1945, the London Charter is signed by France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States, establishing the laws and procedures for the Nuremberg trials.

There are three silly notions about Wisconsin politics deserving no better than prompt dispatch.

1. Every former Republican candidate for governor has a legitimate shot at running again for Wisconsin governor in 2026.

No, they don’t. First, one heard from journalists (who should have known better) talking about a Scott Walker comeback; it was all clickbait. See We Weren’t Teasing, Scott Walker Was Teasing! This week, it was Tommy Thompson talking about his own comeback. See Former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson considering a run in 2026 (“I’m in great physical health, my mind is sharp as hell, I’ve got things I would like to accomplish, but it’s way too early for me to make that decision”).

Oh, brother. Has anyone asked Scott McCallum about his plans? There’s a simple formula for how the WISGOP gubernatorial nominee will be decided:

(SOME MONEY) + (PLENTIFUL EXTREMISM) + (MR. TRUMP’S ENDORSEMENT) = WISGOP GUBERNATORIAL NOMINATION

That’s it. That’s all of it. Walker and Thompson lack necessary terms of the equation: not extreme enough and not likely to get Mr. Trump’s endorsement.

2. Bipartisanship is ethically permissible in this environment.

No, it’s not. Bipartisanship is not possible in a populist environment. Populism has only adherents and enemies; it does not have allies. You are assimilated or you are nothing. See That ‘Bipartisanship’ Didn’t Last Long — Because It Was Never There, The WisDems’ Bipartisan Delusion, Seeing Once Again That Wisconsin’s Not a Bipartisan Environment, ‘Bipartisanship’ in Wisconsin Is Simply the Vulnerability of the WISGOP Under Fair Maps, and After Bipartisanship.

Whenever I read someone committed to the liberal democratic order talking about bipartisanship, I think of nothing so much as a scene from Wells’s War of the Worlds where an artilleryman1 speculates about human life under Martian rule:

“Very likely these Martians will make pets of some of them; train them to do tricks — who knows? — get sentimental over the pet boy who grew up and had to be killed. And some, maybe, they will train to hunt us.”

Bipartisanship is possible only after populism’s defeat.

3. Fusion voting could bring people together.

Fusion voting “is a system that allows multiple parties to endorse the same political candidate — could help remedy the disaffection with politics that they see becoming ever more widespread….Making it possible for candidates to run on more than one party line would strengthen the power of third parties and give them “a seat at the table” as candidates and officeholders shape public policy.”

I’m not a Democrat. I’m a Never Trump2 libertarian of a particular type3. Moral and practical necessity require forming the strongest coalition possible. Multiple third parties weaken that effort.

A third way is the wrong way.

_____

  1. The artillery man is wrong about most things, but would have been right about this. We know he would have been right not because of a fictional account of Martians published in 1922, but because of real events among humans in the following decade. ↩︎
  2. Never means never. ↩︎
  3. Individual rights, liberty as freedom from interference, free markets in labor & capital, limited government, property rights, a spontaneous & dynamic social order, in advancement of social justice, each presumptively held and supported. ↩︎

Drone footage shows forests reduced to ash as wildfire burns through southern France:

Drone footage of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse showed forests reduced to ash after the massive wildfire in southern France. The fire, which started on Tuesday afternoon, began in the village of Ribaute in the Aude department, before spreading across the rural, wooded area of the Corbières, famous for its vineyards and medieval villages. The environment ministry said the blaze had destroyed the same amount of land in 24 hours that wildfires typically burned across France in a year.

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, August 12th, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, The Amateur

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Tuesday, August 12th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of The Amateur @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Spy/Action/Thriller

Rated PG-13. 2 hours, 2 minutes. (2025)

After his life is turned upside down when his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) is killed in a London terrorist attack, a brilliant, introverted CIA decoder (Rami Malek) takes matters into his own hands when his supervisors (Laurence Fishburne) refuse to take action. An exciting deadly chase ensues across many European locales.

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

Congress, Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Law, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 8.7.25: The Latest About New Congressional Maps in Wisconsin

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:53 and sunset is 8:07, for 14 hours, 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 96.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Arts Commission meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1942, the Battle of Guadalcanal begins as the United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the Pacific War with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.

In June, without explanation, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected a challenge to this state’s congressional district boundaries. In July, plaintiffs in two separate cases (Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy on 7.8.25 and Bothfeld, et al. (II) on 7.25.25) came forward with new challenges to those maps. With redistricting a focus of Republicans’ machinations to maintain control of Congress, center-left plaintiffs favoring Wisconsin redistricting are seeking a three-judge panel to hear their new challenges:

They’re asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which has declined to hear other redistricting lawsuits this year, to appoint a three-judge panel to decide whether the state’s congressional districts initially drawn 14 years ago are unconstitutional. 

The process could potentially open a door to two lawsuits filed in Dane County Circuit Court aimed at overturning Wisconsin’s congressional map, which has helped Republicans win six of the state’s eight House districts. 

Any decision issued by the judicial panel could only be appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

See Rich Kremer, In push for new Wisconsin congressional map, liberal firms invoke process created by GOP (‘In 2011, Republicans called for 3-judge panels to hear redistricting lawsuits. Liberal law firms want to use the panels to strike down Republican-drawn congressional districts’), Wisconsin Public Radio, August 7, 2025.

The earlier filings that Wisconsin’s high court dismissed in June were filed directly with that court; these actions filed in July have both different claims and a different point of origin.

The complaints from July are embedded below:

Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, No. 2025CV002252 (Wis. Cir. Ct. Dane Cnty. July 8, 2025).

Dkt.-009-Summons-Complaint-2025.07.08Download

Elizabeth Bothfeld, et al. v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, No. 2025CV002432 (Wis. Cir. Ct. Dane Cnty. July 21, 2025).

WI_2025CV2432_9Download

Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano erupts again:

Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano erupted again on August 6. Located in a closed area of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Kilauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes. In 2019, a string of earthquakes and a major eruption at Kilauea led to the destruction of hundreds of homes and businesses.

Daily Bread, Far-Right Populism, Politics, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 8.6.25: For Wisconsin, 14 Years Feels Like 140

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:51 and sunset is 8:08, for 14 hours, 17 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 91.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law.

The Texas dispute over gerrymandering echoes a Wisconsin controversy over Act 10:

The same type of drama enveloped Wisconsin’s Legislature 14 years ago, when Republicans were fast-tracking collective bargaining legislation that had been introduced just days earlier by then-Gov. Scott Walker. 

Former Wisconsin Sen. Mark Miller, who was the Senate’s minority leader at the time, said the union language was initially included in a budget repair bill introduced by Walker. Miller said one of his staff members noted that because the bill was fiscal in nature, two-thirds of the entire Senate, which worked out to 20 members, had to be at the Wisconsin Capitol in order for the vote to happen.

“I had contacted all the Democratic senators and asked them to pack clothes and toiletries for the next day,” Miller said. “And the next day, when we gathered off-site, I proposed to them that we go to Illinois and deny a quorum.”

Miller and 13 other Democratic senators did just that, staying in Illinois for weeks. Ironically, Miller said the idea was partially inspired by yet another redistricting-related walkout by Texas Democrats in 2003. 

See Rich Kremer, Texas Democrats left their Capitol to block a key vote. In 2011, Wisconsin Democrats tried the same tactic, Wisconsin Public Radio, August 4, 2025.

Echoes of Wisconsin’s past, but faint ones in Walker, Miller, et al.: only 14 years ago, but so much has changed in our politics that Kremer might as well have been describing an event from 140 years ago. Changes that began with the Great Recession (2007-2009) led to a political transformation across America in the rise of populism, leaving those not wholly of or wholly against that movement as mere etchings of what they once were.

(That’s why the Journal Sentinel‘s recent reporting about whether Walker might run for governor again was silly: Walker’s unsuited to these times, the political equivalent of faded, yellowed newsprint. See We Weren’t Teasing, Scott Walker Was Teasing!)

There’s an evident consequence of this distance-of-many-years-in-the-space-of-a-few: the non-aligned, the eternally bipartisan, and the middle grounders are irrelevant. Yesterday’s type of Republican or Democrat isn’t today’s Republican or Democrat. There were then types of Republicans and types of Democrats. No longer. There is only one effectual type of each, the extremism of the former compelling an assertiveness of the latter.

The Carpenters were successful as musicians but sensibly ventured no political prognostications: it is not, and will not again be, Yesterday Once More.

Seattle Kraken mascot has a close encounter with a grizzly bear in Alaska:

America, City, Daily Bread, Economy, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 8.5.25: Prices (Claim & Reality)

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:50 and sunset is 8:10, for 14 hours, 19 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Alcohol & Licensing Committee meets at 5 PM, and the Whitewater Common Council meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1735, New York Weekly Journal writer John Peter Zenger is acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, on the basis that what he had published was true.

The claim in the fall of 2024:

The reality in the summer of 2025:

More than half of Americans (53%) see grocery prices as a major source of stress and another 33% see it as a minor source of stress, according to a new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. 

More people were concerned about grocery prices than any other financial concern brought up in the poll, but more than half of respondents also said they were at least somewhat stressed about their salaries, the cost of housing, the amount of money they have saved, their credit card debt and the cost of health care. 

The Consumer Price Index shows the price of food has risen 3% in the last 12 months—groceries have risen 2.4% while dining out is 3.8% costlier than it was 12 months ago.

From June 2024 to June 2025, groceries got more expensive in every category tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: meats, poultry, fish and eggs rose in price by 5.6% (egg prices alone rose 27.3%); nonalcoholic beverages are 4.4% more expensive; fruits and vegetables rose in price by 0.7%; and both cereals and bakery products and the index for dairy products rose 0.9%.

At 3%, the cost of food is rising faster than the overall inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Price Index, at 2.7%. 

After groceries, the price of housing had the highest number of people reporting it as a major stressor in Monday’s poll (47%), followed by the amount of money saved (43%), salary (43%) and the cost of health care (42%).

See Mary Whitfill Roeloffs, Almost 90% Of Americans Are Worried About The Cost Of Groceries, Forbes, August 4, 2025.

Fireworks display goes wrong in Japan as boats catch fire:

Two boats launching fireworks caught fire in Japan on Monday during a summer festival in Yokohama, located south of Tokyo. Roughly 20 minutes in the event, the music stopped and the officials announced the event was cancelled “due to safety concerns.”

Daily Bread, Public Health, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 8.4.25: Measles Returns to Wisconsin

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:49 and sunset is 8:11, for 14 hours, 22 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 77.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1889, the Great Fire of Spokane, Washington destroys some 32 blocks of the city, prompting a mass rebuilding project.

Years of anti-vaccine claims from ignorant but insistent Facebookers1 take a toll. One reads, sadly yet expectedly, that Wisconsin sees first measles cases, with 9 confirmed in Oconto County:

Nine cases of measles have been confirmed in Oconto County, and local public health officials are working to identify and notify people who may have been exposed to the virus.

The state Department of Health Services said in a statement Saturday that those are the first confirmed cases of the virus in Wisconsin this year.

One of the cases was confirmed through testing at the state hygiene lab, and the other eight were confirmed based on exposure and symptoms, health officials say.

….

Measles can be prevented by the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine. The state health department says two doses of the vaccine are 97 percent effective at preventing the disease.

“In general, people born before 1957 are considered immune and do not need a vaccine,” the state health agency said in a statement. “All other adults without laboratory evidence of immunity should have at least one dose of measles-containing vaccine, and children should have two doses.”

Wisconsin has one of the lowest Measles vaccination rates among children in the country. As of 2023, 81 percent of 2-year-olds had the vaccine, down from 88 percent in 2013. Some Wisconsin counties had vaccination rates closer to 50 percent.

See Joe Schulz, Wisconsin sees first Measles cases, with 9 confirmed in Oconto County (‘Cases reported nationally hit their highest level in 33 years in July’), Wisconsin Public Radio, August 3, 2025.

We have in Wisconsin the highly flexible Assembly Speaker Robin Vos2 to advise on public health, as he did during the pandemic, reacting one way, then another within a year.

April 2020:

April 2021:

Vos is sure to have an answer drawn from his lifetime of public health study.

_____

  1. Hidden camera footage of Facebook anti-vaxxers in action ↩︎
  2. Vos is a figure of admiration among Whitewater’s special interest men: they look upon him as deservedly important, as proof that talents like theirs can take a man places. ↩︎

France’s Macron to honor Paris’ last known newspaper hawker:

President Emmanuel Macron is set to bestow one of France’s most prestigious honors on 73-year-old newspaper seller Ali Akbar, who has crisscrossed Paris’ Latin Quarter selling dailies on the terraces of the capital’s cafés for more than 50 years.

America, Daily Bread, Democrats, Far-Right Populism, Never Trump, Republicans, Wisconsin, WisDems, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 8.3.25: After Bipartisanship

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 5:48 and sunset is 8:12, for 14 hours, 24 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 69.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1921, Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis confirms the ban of the eight Chicago Black Sox, the day after they were acquitted by a Chicago court.

It’s a theme here at FREE WHITEWATER — because it’s a reality in Wisconsin and America — that we do not live in conditions of political bipartisanship. See Seeing Once Again That Wisconsin’s Not a Bipartisan Environment, The WisDems’ Bipartisan Delusion, and That ‘Bipartisanship’ Didn’t Last Long — Because It Was Never There. Even the supposed bipartisan budget deal in Wisconsin was wrongly described. See Vos Admits That Worry Over National GOP Policy Compelled WISGOP Deal With Evers. (While both Evers and Vos described the deal as bipartisan, Vos struck a deal from weakness in 2025 to avoid a worse political fate for the WISGOP in 2026. Vos was only working across the aisle because he saw the boundary of that aisle contracting toward himself.)

It’s reassuring, however unfortunate the national circumstances, to see a meeting of Democratic governors where they are encouraging a robust response to Republican gerrymandering in Texas:

(MADISON, WI) — — A number of high-profile Democratic governors are ready to fight — ardently throwing support behind their colleagues who have said they will draw new Congressional maps to favor Democrats before the 2026 midterm elections in order to directly counter Texas Republicans’ moves to do the same for their party.

Texas GOP lawmakers just this week released their first draft of the state’s new congressional map that could flip three to five Democratic seats in next year’s midterms.

On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom promptly responded, saying he’d spoken with state legislators and members of Congress about holding a special statewide election on Nov. 4 for Californians to vote on new congressional maps — ones that would likely favor Democrats.

Convening later in the week for a summer policy retreat on the shores of Madison, Wisconsin, a number of leading Democratic governors have backed Newsom and any other blue state leaders who are taking an offensive position on redistricting.

The Democrats each did so reluctantly, calling Texas Republicans’ efforts “unconstitutional” and “un-American” with hopes that the courts intervene before any new maps steered by either party are implemented. In the meantime, they said it’s time to fight against the Trump-championed GOP redistricting, especially now that other Republican-led states, including Missouri, might follow suit.

“That is so un-American, and it’s a constant threat to our democracy,” Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said about Republican proposals. “So I’m really pissed, frankly, and we are going to do whatever we can do to stop this from happening.”

Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas, the Chair of the Democratic Governors Association, explicitly got behind Newsom, Kathy Hochul of New York, JB Pritzker of Illinois and any other governors who are weighing counteraction through special elections, special sessions or additional means of redrawing congressional maps.

“I have never believed in unilateral disarmament, and so while I may not want to participate in certain activities, if I have to, in order to level the playing field, I would support my Democratic colleagues who decide to answer in kind,” Kelly said in an interview.

See ABC News, Democratic governors throw support behind Newsom, back partisan redistricting, Everett Post, August 2, 2025.

Yes, indeed. I am not a Democrat, but it should be plain by now that Democratic officeholders who do not fight are despised by the members of their own party. It is necessary, and well past time, to answer in kind.

Volcano erupts for the first time in more than 600 years in Russia’s Far East:

A volcano erupted for the first time in more than 600 years in Russia’s Far East after a powerful earthquake struck the region earlier this week.

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 8.2.25: Justice Crawford

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:47 and sunset is 8:14, for 14 hours, 26 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 60.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1869,  Japan’s Edo society class system is abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms.

Yesterday, Wisconsin’s newest Supreme Court justice was sworn in:

See also Anya van Wagtendonk, Susan Crawford sworn in to Wisconsin Supreme Court, cementing yearslong liberal majority (‘The former Dane County judge won election to the high court after the most expensive judicial election in American history’), Wisconsin Public Radio, August 1, 2025.

This election was not close, and was never close (Crawford was ahead the whole race). The tens of millions that Musk spent on the election was money on a bonfire, and the advice from Scott Walker that encouraged Musk to spend that money was, foreseeably, poor advice.

The ocean’s deepest animal ecosystem:

An unexpected array of life has been discovered in ocean trenches 9000m below the surface of the Pacific. The ecosystem here depends on bacteria who can get energy from methane and other chemicals which seep through the rocks of the sea floor.
Read the paper here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158…