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Daily Bread, Economy, Mendacity

Daily Bread for 11.23.25: Misleading (Yet Again) on Ordinary Conditions

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:57 and sunset is 4:25 for 9 hours 28 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 9.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1924, Edwin Hubble‘s discovery, that the Andromeda “nebula” is actually another island galaxy far outside our own Milky Way, is first published in the New York Times:

This was first hypothesized as early as 1755 when Immanuel Kant’s General History of Nature and Theory of the Heavens appeared. Hubble’s hypothesis was opposed by many in the astronomy establishment of the time, in particular by Harvard University–based Harlow Shapley. Despite the opposition, Hubble, then a thirty-five-year-old scientist, had his findings first published in The New York Times on November 23, 1924, then presented them to other astronomers at the January 1, 1925, meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Hubble’s results for the Andromeda galaxy were not formally published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal until 1929.

Trump misleads even on a simple claim about Thanksgiving prices:

“Walmart just announced that the cost of their standard Thanksgiving meal is reduced by 25 percent this year from last year”

— in a [Trump] speech at an investment forum on Wednesday

This is misleading. While it is true that Walmart announced that this year’s Thanksgiving meal — its annual basket of items for a holiday spread — would cost 25 percent less than last year’s, the contents of this year’s basket were considerably different.

Walmart, which began offering the basket in 2022, said in a news release last year that its Thanksgiving meal then included 29 items, which totaled about $55. This year’s basket included 22 items, totaling just under $40 — a decrease of about 25 percent.

The baskets also included different items, different brands and different sizes. For example, the 2024 basket included a frozen turkey weighing between 10 and 16 pounds at a cost of $0.88 per pound, while the 2025 basket includes a 13.5-pound turkey at a cost of $0.97 per pound. The 2025 basket does not include nine of the 2024 items, but added four new items. And among items in both years’ baskets, fried onions and mushroom soup came in smaller amounts this year.

See Linda Qiu, Fact-Checking Trump’s Latest Claims on Affordability (‘The president has made misleading statements about the cost of a Thanksgiving meal, breakfast and gasoline and about prices in general’), New York Times, November 23, 2025.

Misleading? Yes, to the marrow.

‘Stadium effect’ captured in eye of Hurricane Melissa:

A rare look into the eye of a category 5 storm has been captured by a US Air Force plane flying through Hurricane Melissa.

Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.22.25: 0.001353%

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 47. Sunrise is 6:56 and sunset is 4:26 for 9 hours 30 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 5.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1963, President Kennedy is assassinated and Texas Governor Connally is seriously wounded by Lee Harvey Oswald, who also kills Dallas Police officer J. D. Tippit after fleeing the scene. Vice President Johnson is sworn in as the 36th President of the United States afterwards.

When the populists feel that they might lose an election, or when in fact they have lost an election, they’re quick to cry fraud. The possible, credible allegations of fraud in Wisconsin elections are far fewer. The 2024 November election shows how rare those credible allegations — ones referred by election clerks — are:

Wisconsin election clerks referred 46 instances of suspected fraud and voting irregularities to prosecutors related to the November 2024 presidential election, a report released this week showed, representing a tiny fraction of the more than 3.4 million ballots cast.

See Scott Bauer, ‘Wisconsin clerks refer 46 cases of suspected fraud, irregularities in 2024 presidential election, Associated Press, November 21, 2025.

What percentage is this?

It is 0.001353%.

The percentage chance of sighting a leprechaun on Election Day would be higher.

NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic aircraft soars in first flight highlights:

NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic aircraft conducted its historic first-ever flight on Oct. 28, 2025. See the flight highlights here.

City, Daily Bread, Economy, Local Government, Tariffs

Daily Bread for 11.21.25: Shoppers Scale Back

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 46. Sunrise is 6:54 and sunset is 4:26 for 9 hours 32 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1969, the first permanent ARPANET link is established between UCLA and SRI.

In Whitewater, one sometimes hears at the Common Council lectern from one or another of yesteryear’s men, having positioned themselves as concerned about taxes, and complaining about this local action or that. How odd to read, then, that the very party they likely supported, and the candidates they likely supported, are responsible for America’s multiple challenges with affordability:

Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s and TJX — the parent company of TJ Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods — all described a cautious consumer, with tariffs, political tensions, still-high interest rates, an uncertain job market and the rising cost of essentials bogging down their outlook on the economy. But they continue to spend as the holiday season approaches — stretching their budget to afford groceries and essentials and willing to splurge if the deal is right and the product is new and on-trend. 

Analysts also had a caveat: The future could get murkier after the holidays as more tariff-induced price increases will likely be passed on to consumers. 

Consumers are “stable on the necessities but hesitant on big spending,” said Bryan Hayes, an analyst at Zacks Investment Research. “This cautionary theme of spending will certainly linger into early next year and likely midway through.”

(Emphasis added.)

See Jaclyn Peiser, ‘Anxious’ shoppers keep scaling back and hunting for deals, retailers say, Washington Post, November 21, 2025.

An entitled perspective is not an enlightened one. As it turns out, an inherited collection of student rentals is a poor substitute for sound reading and good judgment.

Wisconsin Life | Keeping a Swedish candle tradition alive:

Inspired by his Swedish family and a passion for making things, Alan Anderson makes a batch of traditional “grenljus” each year in his Baraboo home. The meditative process connects him to ancestors who made three-pronged candles for winter survival and religious celebrations — and reminds us of the value of carrying on folk art traditions.

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, November 25th, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, What’s Cooking

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Tuesday, November 25th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of What’s Cooking @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Comedy/ Drama/ Romance Rated PG-13 (language)

1 hours, 49 minutes (2000)

Several families of different ethnicity gather together for Thanksgiving dinner, with much humor, drama, and love. Starring Joan Chen, Juliana Margulies, Mercedes Ruehl, Alfre Woodard, and Dennis Haysbert.

One can find more information about What’s Cooking at the Internet Movie Database.

City, Daily Bread, Local Government, Nature

Daily Bread for 11.20.25: Whitewater’s Lakes

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 49. Sunrise is 6:53 and sunset is 4:27 for 9 hours 34 minutes of daytime. The moon is new with 0.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1820, an 80-ton sperm whale attacks and sinks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America. (Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick was, in part, inspired by the incident.)

Whitewater has made progress on the condition of her two lakes, Cravath and Trippe. (The video above, from part of the November 18th meeting of the Whitewater Common Council, describes that progress.)

Toward the end of the last city administration, and one of the reasons it became the last city administration, there was community ire about the state of Cravath and Trippe Lakes following a botched drainage effort. There was more than one heated meeting at which residents complained about the sorry condition of our two lakes.

While the drainage effort was botched, the controversy illustrated four aspects of Whitewater’s community response: (1) a few longtime residents were for many years concerned about our lakes, (2) the drainage effort was not properly supervised, (3) many other longtime residents who ignored the lakes for years suddenly saw it as a crisis, and (4) there was a reflex among those longtime residents who ignored the lakes for years to blame the WI DNR or any other outside group they could. Residents who lived here for many years saw the lakes deteriorate over more than a decade. We did too little for too long. (My own limited writing about the lakes was too little to count as anything like vigilance.)

Our lakes, our responsibility.

Then came a few complaints that the current local government needed to fix the lakes — pronto — when we had, as a community, ignored them for many years.

As it has turned out, that local government and the dedicated residents who have helped them in this effort have done better than most would have expected in improving the condition of the lakes. (This includes treatments for the lakes better crafted than the prior slapdash scheme around the time of drainage.)

Not finished, but a work in progress. Not pristine, but better. (But then, pristine isn’t a steady natural state.)

Better is welcome.

NASA unveils close-up images of interstellar comet 3I/Atlas:

NASA unveiled close-up pictures on Wednesday of the interstellar comet that’s making a quick one-and-done tour of the solar system.

Daily Bread, Health, Legislation, Legislature, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 11.19.25: Robin Vos Was Never a Reliable Vote for Fundamental Principles

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 44. Sunrise is 6:52 and sunset is 4:28 for 9 hours 36 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 0.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

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

On this day in 1863, President Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the dedication ceremony for the military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

ProPublica has just published a story on Robin Vos’s betrayal of his own professed pro-life position:

The most powerful Republican in Wisconsin stepped up to a lectern that was affixed with a sign reading, “Pro-Women Pro-Babies Pro-Life Rally.”

“One of the reasons that I ran for office was to protect the lives of unborn children,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos told the cheering crowd gathered in the ornate rotunda of the state Capitol. They were there on a June day in 2019 to watch him sign four anti-abortion bills and to demand that the state’s Democratic governor sign them. (The governor did not.)

“Legislative Republicans are committed to protecting the preborn because we know life is the most basic human right,” Vos promised. “We will continue to do everything we can to protect the unborn, to protect innocent lives”…

Many anti-abortion Republicans have supported new state laws and policies to extend Medicaid coverage to women for a year after giving birth, up from 60 days. The promise of free health care for a longer span can help convince women in financial crises to proceed with their pregnancies, rather than choose abortion, proponents say. And many health experts have identified the year after childbirth as a precarious time for mothers who can suffer from a host of complications, both physical and mental.

Legislation to extend government-provided health care coverage for up to one year for low-income new moms has been passed in 48 other states — red, blue and purple. Not in Arkansas, where enough officials have balked. And not in Wisconsin, where the limit remains two months. And that’s only because of Vos.

The Wisconsin Senate passed legislation earlier this year that would increase Medicaid postpartum coverage to 12 months. In the state Assembly, 30 Republicans have co-sponsored the legislation, and there is more than enough bipartisan support to pass the bill in that chamber.

But Vos, who has been speaker for nearly 13 years and whose campaign funding decisions are considered key to victory in elections, controls the Assembly. And, according to insiders at the state Capitol, he hasn’t allowed a vote on the Senate bill or the Assembly version, burying it deep in a committee that barely meets: Regulatory Licensing Reform.

With a majority of his own Assembly caucus supporting the legislation, the emptiness of Vos’s pro-life position is stark:

“If we can’t get something like this done, then I don’t know what I’m doing in the Legislature,” Republican Rep. Patrick Snyder, the bill’s author and an ardent abortion foe, said in February in a Senate hearing.

How does Vos explain his position? He won’t:

Reached by phone, Vos declined to discuss the issue with ProPublica and referred questions to his spokesperson, who then did not respond to calls or emails.

See Megan O’Matz, He Vowed to “Protect the Unborn.” Now He’s Blocking a Bill to Expand Medicaid for Wisconsin’s New Moms (‘Splitting with anti-abortion members of his own party, Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has refused to join 48 other states in ensuring that vulnerable women have access to potentially lifesaving care for up to a year after giving birth’), ProPublica, November 17, 2025.

The legislation is a specific, limited, easily managed advance for children’s health.

Big title, big office, yet not big enough to answer a simple question.

Well, yes — that’s Robin Vos in full.

Microsoft Windows Turns 40 — leaving to others whether that’s good or bad:

Microsoft Windows marks 40 years since its launch on November 20, 1985, evolving through 11 versions to become a cornerstone of modern computing.

Daily Bread, Elections, Politics, Populists, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 11.18.25: An Example of Selective WISGOP Theology

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 47. Sunrise is 6:51 and sunset is 4:28 for 9 hours 38 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

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

On this day in 1872, Susan B. Anthony and 14 other women are arrested for voting illegally in the United States presidential election of 1872.

There’s a telling passage in Andrew Shur’s recent story on WISGOP infighting over Wisconsin election reforms:

A Republican lawmaker’s plan to regulate drop boxes and give Wisconsin’s clerks more time to process absentee ballots ran into obstacles last week, including skepticism from fellow Republicans and a rival GOP bill to ban drop boxes entirely. 

The cool reception for Rep. Scott Krug’s ideas, especially to let clerks process ballots on the Monday before an election, underscores the GOP’s persistent internal divide over election policy in Wisconsin, with advocates of reforms long sought by election officials of both parties running into distrust fueled by conspiracy theories and misinformation. Last week, the resistance appeared strong enough to stall or complicate efforts by Republicans who aim to address clerks’ needs and craft workable policy that can gain Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ support.

That split was on full display at a Nov. 4 hearing of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, chaired by Rep. Dave Maxey, R-New Berlin…

Krug, a former committee chair who championed the draft bill to regulate drop boxes, argued that his colleagues should adopt a “reality-based” mindset with their approach to drop boxes. Liberals, he said, control the governor’s office, making it all but certain that GOP Rep. Lindee Brill’s bill to ban drop boxes would get vetoed by Evers. 

To that, Brill responded: “I am a believer in God and a follower of Jesus Christ, so do I think there’s a chance that (Evers) would change his mind and sign this into law? Sure. But I’m taking this on because our Republican president believes this is the direction we should be heading.”

See Andrew Shur, Wisconsin election reforms sought by clerks are stalled by GOP infighting, Wisconsin Watch, November 14, 2025.

Under Rep. Lindee Brill’s assessment, Tony Evers might change his mind (implicitly through divine inspiration), whereas there’s no corresponding possibility that Donald Trump might change his mind. The implication is either that Trump already occupies God’s position on absentee voting or that Trump’s understanding of voting equals—or exceeds—God’s. In any event, the asymmetry is striking.

It feels strange to have to write this, but one cannot sensibly discern God’s position on absentee voting. The safest — and soundest — theological conclusion is that God, as understood by major religious traditions, has no position on absentee voting.

Brill’s entitled to her view, and while it’s not theologically sound, it’s telling: hers is politics first and a theology second. Extreme populism leads to the place where Brill’s thinking now holds sway — where religious concepts are subordinated to a political project.

See also Of David French, Traditions, and Examples.

In another part of the word, during a different kind of search, a Guardian journalist is chased by bloodhounds in a fox hunting alternative:

Guardian journalist Matthew Weaver filmed himself being chased by a pack of bloodhounds as part of a day spent ‘clean boot hunting’. Under government plans to outlaw trail hunting, the only way to legally hunt with hounds in England and Wales could soon be to chase people rather than animals or their scents. It involves bloodhounds and horse riders pursuing not foxes but cross-country runners.

Confidence Schemes, Daily Bread, Economy, Housing

Daily Bread for 11.17.25: Schemes Are a Paltry Substitute for Supply

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 47. Sunrise is 6:49 and sunset is 4:29 for 9 hours 40 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 6.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4 PM, the Police and Fire Commission at 6 PM, and the Library Board at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1558, Queen Mary I of England dies and is succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth I.

About those fifty-year mortgages that the federal administration proposed:

Trump got his fifty-year-mortgage idea from the MAGA loyalist Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who reportedly pitched it as a way to offer home buyers lower monthly payments. But Pulte seems to have neglected to tell the President a couple of pertinent facts. Since mortgage holders pay off most of the interest on a loan before they start eating into the principal in a meaningful way, it could take someone who took out a fifty-year mortgage decades to build up much equity. And, because of the longer duration of the loan, they would carry higher interest rates than shorter-term loans. Analysts at UBS Securities calculated that, under Trump’s scheme, a typical borrower with a mortgage of four hundred and twenty thousand dollars would save a hundred and nineteen dollars a month, but they would make payments for an extra twenty years and end up paying twice as much interest.

After widespread blowback to the idea, Trump’s enthusiasm for it appeared to wane, and Politico reported that White House officials were furious with Pulte for selling the President “a bill of goods.” Pulte, too, seemed to pull back. He said the Administration was considering another option, “portable mortgages” that would allow homeowners to transfer their loan for one property to another. The idea here would be to break the current logjam in which many people are reluctant to move because they’d have to take out a new mortgage at a higher rate. But Pulte provided no details about how the loan transfers would work, or whether banks would even agree to them.

See John Cassidy, Donald Trump Can’t Dodge the Costly K-Shaped Economy, The New Yorker, November 17, 2025.

The federal mortgage plan (so predatory it’s probably dead forever) gives homeowners something, but in return it takes more. It’s simply a new version of an old deception: “The Closer You Look, The Less You See.”

Schemes are a paltry a substitute for supply, as schemers aren’t worthy suppliers.

Sheep pass through Nuremberg to winter pastures in Germany:


City, Daily Bread, Development, Economy, Housing, Tariffs

Daily Bread for 11.16.25: It’s All So Easy on the Campaign Trail

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 48. Sunrise is 6:48 and sunset is 4:30 for 9 hours 42 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 11.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1914, the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens.

Catherine Rampell nicely summarizes the Trump Administration’s economic errors:

THE PARTY IN POWER just lost an election because the party out of power hammered them hard for not cutting prices. If that sounds familiar, it’s because pretty much the same thing happened last year, except the antagonists have swapped places.

Turns out it’s easy to win while running as an outsider promising “affordability.” It’s much harder to actually do anything about it.

It’s doubly hard if you insist the problem doesn’t exist in the first place and suggest voters should just shut up about it. Triply hard if your economic policy agenda (cough-cough, tariffs) cuts in the opposite direction, making life more expensive.

In short, President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have learned nothing from how badly Joe Biden and the Democrats bungled inflation. Instead they’re repeating some of the same mistakes and adopting the same useless gimmicks. Only this time, they’re also pursuing policies that make the problem worse…

In the long run the best ways to make life more “affordable” are to pass policies that boost productivity and wages; make the supply of things that are expensive—such as housing and energy—more plentiful; and perhaps provide targeted subsidies on specific expenses like health care.

(Emphasis added.)

See Catherine Rampell, Trump Is Falling Into the Same Trap That Ensnared Biden (‘Republicans learned nothing from how badly Dems bungled inflation’), The Bulwark, November 13, 2025.

Policies — perhaps especially local ones — should increase, whenever possible, the supply of housing and energy for Whitewater.

Watch Oscar Isaac Create Life in ‘Frankenstein’ | Anatomy of a Scene:

A ball, two batteries and a reanimated corpse help make for a memorable presentation during this scene from Guillermo del Toro’s take on “Frankenstein.” “What is great about this scene,” del Toro said, “is that it establishes all at once Victor’s quest, Victor’s intentions, his temperament and the absolute lack of uncertainty, which every tyrant, every villain, really has.”

The film is now available on Netflix.

Daily Bread, Economy, Tariffs

Daily Bread for 11.15.25: Last Holdout on Earth Concedes That Tariffs Bring Price Increases

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 65. Sunrise is 6:47 and sunset is 4:31 for 9 hours 44 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 18.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman begins his March to the Sea through Georgia towards the city of Savannah.

Trump admitted in 2024 that he didn’t know whether tariffs would raise prices:

Trump has threatened broad trade penalties, but said he didn’t believe economists’ predictions that added costs on those imported goods for American companies would lead to higher prices for U.S. consumers. He stopped short of a pledge that U.S. households won’t be paying more as they shop.

“I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow,” Trump said, seeming to open the door to accepting the reality of how import levies typically work as goods reach the retail market.

That’s a different approach from Trump’s typical speeches throughout the 2024 campaign, when he framed his election as a sure way to curb inflation.

In the interview, Trump defended tariffs generally, saying they are “going to make us rich.”

See Bill Barrow and Will Weissert, Trump says he can’t guarantee tariffs won’t raise US prices and won’t rule out revenge prosecutions, Associated Press, December 8, 2024.

Higher prices and revenge prosecutions have both come to pass. (When Trump spoke about making ‘us’ rich, he was speaking about benefiting a small number of family members and cronies.)

Eleven months later, his own admitted ignorance about grocery prices has met the reality that tariffs bring price increases. And so, and so — Trump reverses course and cuts tariffs on US food imports:

Donald Trump moved to lower tariffs on food imports, including beef, tomatoes, coffee and bananas, in an executive order on Friday as the White House fights off growing concerns about rising costs.

The new exemptions take effect retroactively at midnight on Thursday and mark a sharp reversal for Trump, who has long insisted that his import duties are not fueling inflation. They come after a string of victories for Democrats in state and local elections in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City, where affordability was a key topic.

See Dominic Rushe, Trump reverses course and cuts tariffs on US food imports, The Guardian, November 14, 2025.

Chimp escape prompts zoo lockdown:

The Indianapolis Zoo was briefly locked down when a chimpanzee escaped her enclosure.

City, Daily Bread, Development, Economy

Daily Bread for 11.14.25: Pro on Pro Forma

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 63. Sunrise is 6:46 and sunset is 4:32 for 9 hours 46 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 27.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1851, Melville’s Moby-Dick is published in the United States.

At the November 4th meeting of the Whitewater Common Council, representatives of Ehlers, a financial advising firm, explained how they could assist Whitewater in evaluating the appropriate amount of tax incremental financing, if any, for Whitewater development projects. (See relevant portion of the meeting, above.) Tax incremental financing is a public financing mechanism that designates a specific tax area (a tax incremental district) and uses the increase in property tax revenue generated by subsequent development within that district to pay for the project’s costs.

(Note well: only taxes on the increased value, the incremental tax revenue, from the development stays within the district to pay the costs of a development project. The tax revenue derived from the initial value of the district when that district is formed continues to go to a community’s general revenues.)

Whitewater has had challenges with tax incremental financing for many years. Those problems are not the consequence of plans made over the last few years — they are problems from the previous few decades. (Those contending otherwise, having produced by their own efforts only failure upon failure, are either deficient in long-term memory or dissembling in narration. They are free to pick for themselves between the two deficiencies.)

Whitewater now has a city government that seeks a financial firm to follow and evaluate proposed projects as those projects unfold. A review like this would be a pro forma review. (In Whitewater’s case, it would mean a financial assessment of a proposed tax-increment-financed project, although the Latin term — literally, for the form — has other connotations and uses.)

Yes and yes again. This local government should proceed deliberately — seeking the best, expecting the best (and doing its best). It’s right that our fifteen thousand residents should have better than they have had.

As always: Whitewater deserves the highest standards. The addition of a review like this will add to the modernization, indeed normalization, of policy in this city.

Blue Origin successfully lands its New Glenn rocket booster after launch:

Blue Origin launched its huge New Glenn rocket Thursday with a pair of NASA spacecraft destined for Mars. For the first time, it also recovered the booster following its separation from the upper stage and the Mars orbiters.