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2:00PM Water Cooler 11/15/2022

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Bird Song of the Day

Ruddy-capped Nightingale-Thrush, Querétaro, Mexico. The spectrogram looks a bit like cuneiform.

* * *

Politics

“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“Here’s food for thought, had Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels” –Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Biden Administration

President Superspreader?

“Biden says Democrats will not be able to pass abortion-rights legislation” [NBC]. • That was fast. My goodness, I thought the Democrats were still in power until January?

2022

The House:

* * *

“The 2022 Midterms Were One of the Best Elections the Left Has Had in Memory” [Jacobin]. “The major top-line success for the Left this election is the addition of several new insurgent candidates who, like “the Squad” of 2018, were backed by progressive outside groups — notably the Working Families Party (WFP) and Justice Democrats — with little or no support from established party networks. The total of such members now rises to twelve, after four such insurgent candidates sailed to victory in safe blue seats for which they won primaries earlier this year. This year’s crop is Summer Lee (PA-12), Greg Casar (TX-35), Delia Ramirez (IL-03), and Maxwell Frost (FL-10). This group is notable, among other things, for its seriousness commitments to left-wing policy.” • Isn’t it pretty to think so.

“This was the year liberal democracy fought back” [Janan Ganesh, Financial Times]. • This is a silly column. Liberal so-called democracy really fought back in 2020, when in the UK Labour electeds and bureaucrats, with the help of the press and the spooks, defenestrated Jeremy Corybyn on “baseless” charges of anti-Semitism, and o the US liberal Democrat Barack Obama staged “the Night of the Long Knives,” and made sure that Bernie Sanders would never take the nomination.

“In Secretary of State Races, Election Deniers (Mostly) Lose” [Bolts]. “All election deniers who ran for secretary of state in battleground states—buoyed by endorsements from Trump—lost on Tuesday, blocking major avenues for the former president to manipulate the next election. Jim Marchant, the Republican nominee in Nevada, came closest, losing to Democrat Francisco Aguilar by two percentage points. In Michigan, Minnesota, and New Mexico, incumbent Democratic secretaries of state crushed their far-right challengers Kristina Karamo, Kim Crockett, and Audrey Trujillo by margins ranging from 9 to 14 percentage points—all far more than Joe Biden’s margins of victory two years ago. Mark Finchem, an Arizona lawmaker who has since 2020 championed proposals to decertify his own state’s presidential results, repeated just this fall that the votes of Arizona’s two most populous counties should be “tossed out.” He lost his bid on Tuesday, trailing in both of these counties decisively. Election deniers also failed to take over secretary of state offices in blue states like Massachusetts and Vermont, lost elections for governor in places where the winner can appoint a secretary of state, and fell short for other offices from which they may have exerted significant if indirect influence on elections, such as Michigan’s attorney general or New Mexico’s supreme court.” • I’m really of two minds about the election denier bucket, since I’m sure there are gradations. Not only that, election deniers are the only political faction demanding paper ballots, in my view righteous. So….)

* * *

TX: “Texas governor calls for investigation into Houston-area elections” [The Hill]. “Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Monday called for an investigation into ‘widespread problems’ in Houston-area elections during the midterms. ‘The allegations of election improprieties in our state’s largest county may result from anything ranging from malfeasance to blatant criminal conduct. Voters in Harris County deserve to know what happened. Integrity in the election process is essential. To achieve that standard, a thorough investigation is warranted,’ Abbott said in a statement. The Republican governor, who defeated Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke last week, called on the Texas secretary of state, the state attorney general and the Texas Rangers “to initiate investigations into allegations of improprieties in the ay that the 2022 elections were conducted in Harris County.’ A number of polling locations in Harris County allegedly failed to open on time on Election Day, which spurred the Texas Civil Rights Project and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas to file an emergency lawsuit — and the county’s 782 polling places were ordered to stay open an hour past their typical closing time.”

2024

I see you quiver with antici…. pation:

“DeSantis brushes off Trump attacks: ‘All that’s just noise'” [The Hill]. DeSantis: “I think what you learn is, all that’s just noise, and really what matters is, are you leading, are you getting in front of issues, are you delivering results for people and are you standing up for folks? And if you do that, then none of that stuff matters.”

“Why the midterms make me optimistic for America” [Noah Smith, Noahpinion]. “Only recently, Florida was considered a highly competitive purple state. Obama won it in 2012, and gubernatorial races there have usually been very close. But in the 2022 midterms, Ron DeSantis won a crushing 20-point victory, and Republicans won solidly pretty much everywhere on the ballot. Turning Florida into a deep red state is a major coup for Republicans, and they owe a lot of it to DeSantis. And DeSantis did it in part because he won over the state’s Hispanic voters. The much-talked-about Hispanic shift toward the GOP is proceeding only slowly at the national level, but in Florida it has been a major shift (and not just among Cubans either). DeSantis seems to have an almost Reaganesque ability to stake out culture-war positions that drive elite liberals up the wall while failing to scare away the ethnic working class.”• I always enjoy reader reactions to Smith. Is he wrong here? (And how on earth did a tired old hack and former Republican like Crist get nominated?)

“Rupert Murdoch urges Donald Trump not to run in 2024, threatening to back a Democrat if he does” [iNews]. “One senior News Corp source told i: “We have been clear with Donald. There have been conversations between them during which Rupert made it clear to Donald that we cannot back another run for the White House.’ It is also understood that Mr Murdoch’s son Lachlan, who is co-chairman of News Corp and chief executive of Fox News’ parent company Fox Corporation, has informed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis that the family’s media clout would get behind him should he run for the White House, even if Mr Trump stands against him and whether Joe Biden is the Democrat candidate or not.”

“Michelle Obama: Trump victory ‘still hurts’ after six years” [The Hill]. • That’s a damn shame.

Democrats en Déshabillé

Patient readers, it seems that people are actually reading the back-dated post! But I have not updated it, and there are many updates. So I will have to do that. –lambert

I have moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Party (“the Democrat Party is a rotting corpse that can’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated post, to which I will periodically add material, summarizing the addition here in a “live” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It turns out that defining the Democrat Party is, in fact, a hard problem. I do think the paragraph that follows is on point all the way back to 2016, if not before:

The Democrat Party is the political expression of the class power of PMC, their base (lucidly explained by Thomas Frank in Listen, Liberal!). It follows that the Democrat Party is as “unreformable” as the PMC is unreformable; if the Democrat Party did not exist, the PMC would have to invent it. If the Democrat Party fails to govern, that’s because the PMC lacks the capability to govern. (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” of course.) Second, all the working parts of the Party reinforce each other. Leave aside characterizing the relationships between elements of the Party (ka-ching, but not entirely) those elements comprise a network — a Flex Net? An iron octagon? — of funders, vendors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with assets in the press and the intelligence community.

Note, of course, that the class power of the PMC both expresses and is limited by other classes; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial model’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to mind. Suck up, kick down.

* * *

“How Democrats Can Build a John Fetterman 2.0” [Michael Sokolove, New York Times]. ” I talked to Mr. Fetterman’s campaign manager, Brendan McPhillips, about what lessons can be drawn from the campaign. ‘It’s about embracing candidates for who they are and not trying to nominate the same cookie-cutter people or mold them into something they’re not,’ he said. ‘And you can’t try to slice off entire demographic categories and ignore them. It’s a recipe for failure.’ Ms. [Anat Shenker-Osorio, a Bay Area-based strategist for progressive candidates and organizations] told me that the Democratic establishment in Pennsylvania lined up in the spring primary behind Mr. Fetterman’s opponent, Conor Lamb, a moderate congressman from a family with a deep history in Democratic politics. Mr. Fetterman ‘was deemed too lefty,’ she said. ‘They desperately wanted Lamb. So, as step one, how about we put an ax through ‘electability’ and recall that the middle of the road is where you get run over.'” • I would have like to have had some interviews with panels of voters, instead of yet another emptied Rolodex. “Bay area strategist”? Really? (That said, yes, every county and social media, though Sololove doesn’t take the view, as I do, that Fetterman’s use of social media was a shiny bauble to distract the press, who otherwise would have gone into their “pull the wings off flies” mode well before the debate.)

Realignment and Legitimacy

#COVID19

Lambert here: I can’t call a winter surge, though we’ll really have to wait for Thanksgiving travel. However, high transmission (CDC), the elevation and continued increase in positivity (Walgreens), and the steady takeover of BQ.1* (CDC; Walgreens) are all a little unsettling (as is the apparent proliferation of variants). Stay safe out there! (As far as Thanksgiving travel goes, lacking CDC’s “Rapid Riser” counties feature, the best we can do, I think, is follow the news and look at wastewater. I would order risk from highest to lowest at JFK/LGA (New York), ORD (Chicago), and then LAX (Los Angeles) and ATL (Atlanta). Since New York — as of this writing, and of course all the data is delayed, making personal risk assessment an epic in delusion, but I digress — is a BQ.1* hotbed, I’d try to use EWR (Newark) not JFK/LGA. My $0.02!

* * *

• ”ASHRAE Positions on Infectious Aerosols Approved by the ASHRAE Board of Directors October 13, 2022″ (PDF) [ASHRAE]. ASHRAE = American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers. This is big:

Now if somebody could just tell those weasels at CDC and in the Biden administration that #CovidIsAirborne. Commentary:

Marr being an exceptional aerosol scientist, congratulations to her.

* * *

• ”Why Do They *Think* That?” [Essays you didn’t want to read]. A question you and I have been rumuninating on, which the post partially answers with a long explanation of cognitive heuristics, biases and fallacies, with examples. To me, this passage was key:

“People wish to be seen (by themselves and others) as reasonable. Because of this, when folks try to decide on a ‘rational’ response to an environmental threat, they often look at the array of available risk mitigation options and try to pick a percentage of these that is neither an ‘under-response’ or an ‘over-response.’… Unfortunately, that’s not the way risk actually works; a threat is what it is, and it isn’t going to negotiate with you regarding how much you have to do or what is a ‘fair’ amount of effort…. Unfortunately, US public health leaders have been promoting this framing of risk in relative (vs. absolute) terms throughout the pandemic. Their stated reason is that they believe they’d never get full compliance anyway, and that asking for it would only trigger reactant noncompliance. But when policy makers are also clearly more interested in economic heath than in public health, I suspect that argument is something of a dissonance-reducing rationalization on their part. People in many other societies have willingly done much more to reduce risk than we have here. If US residents had been told clearly why and how to reduce risk, and the government had made various tools more available, we would likely have seen both a larger uptake in risk reduction measures and a more positive attitude toward that mitigation. (Remember that free N95s were ready to mail out to the whole country, when Trump pulled the plug*.) Thanks to the illusory truth effect (which holds that statements are more likely to be accepted as true the more often they’re repeated), messaging from people like Rochelle Walensky and Ashish Jha has created and endlessly reinforced the notions that ‘Mitigation is Hard,’ ‘People Are Too Tired,’ ‘Previous Mitigations Are No Longer Necessary’ and ‘It’s Totally Fine for Everyone if Everyone Does ‘You Do You.’’ Those who push back against those messages are both violating group norms and reminding others of unpleasant truths they’ve been already assured they can stop thinking about. It’s no wonder the sight of a masked face promotes resentment.

The whole post is worth a read. NOTE * I don’t love Trump, but in this he would have been following WHO and CDC guidance.

* * *

• “Why Masks Still Matter” [Time]. “Currently, the CDC does not list masks under their guidance to Americans for how to prevent flu. And data has been mixed in the past with regard to what type of mask would truly be needed. A randomized trial examining whether use of N95 respirators versus medical masks in preventing influenza among healthcare workers found no significant difference. However, the study was primarily conducted in outpatient clinic settings, which are notably different than within a hospital, or within a crowded public setting for longer periods of time. In another randomized trial, use of N95 masks was associated with significantly lower rates of respiratory illness, and lower rates of bacterial colonization of the respiratory tract. Furthermore, COVID-19 mitigation efforts of the past two seasons very likely contributed to exceptionally low flu transmission, as noted by the CDC. Given that flu is less transmissible than COVID-19, the level of community masking needed to blunt transmission would likely be lower and more easily achievable. With limited yet mixed data, we would be wise to heed caution and err on the side of masking in high risk, indoor crowded public settings where these diseases spread most easily.” • Obviously, this post confirms my priors, but to be fair I do not know how the flu or RSV are transmitted (either the current dominant paradigm or whatever the science actually says). Meanwhile, the Brownstone Institute must feel threatened, because they’ve dropped a great load:

* * *

“Journal of Some Plague Years” [David Fisman, Dropbox]. • Even though this is a slideshow, it’s worth a read for the timeline, public health’s reign of error. This slide is useful on hegemonic PMC* failure:

NOTE The aerosol scientists are PMC too, let us not forget. Clearly they’re not hegemonic; I call them exceptional for the personal qualities and institutional support required to assault the hegemonic paradigm.

* * *

• That pernicious “immunity debt” meme:

* * *

• Majestic Petri Dish docks in Sydney:

We learn nothing….

Transmission

Here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to community transmission. (This is the map CDC wants only hospitals to look at, not you.)

Positivity

NOT UPDATED From the Walgreen’s test positivity tracker, published November 12:

-0.1%. Down.

Wastewater

Wastewater data (CDC), November 11:

Lambert here: An enormous number of counties have gone dark (grey dot, no data) in West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, and Oregon. I don’t know whether that’s because they’ve dropped out of the program. or CDC butchered the data, or CDC’s contractor, Biobot, had problems. (Biobot’s data page includes the following disclaimers: “Not all locations may have submitted recent samples,” and “Biobot’s scheduled variant data update is delayed.” Maybe so.)

Lambert here: Each dot on the map is a sewershed that you can click for data. Today, LAX (or rather, the humongous Los Angeles County, which includes LAX, in the Westchester neighborhood):

We already found elevated levels (orange dot) in JFK/LGA’s county, Queen, We looked at ORD’s county, Cook (one of two counties, actually), which was not elevated (blue dot). Today, CDC’s map says LAX’s county is not elevated (blue dot) but we can see a slight rise in its chart. Heck, here’s ATL (Cobb):

November 7:

Variants

Lambert here: It’s beyond frustrating how slow the variant data is. Does nobody in the public health establishment get a promotion for tracking variants? Are there no grants? Is there a single lab that does this work, and everybody gets the results from them? [grinds teeth, bangs head on desk]. UPDATE Yes. See NC here on Pango. Every Friday, a stately, academic pace utterly incompatible with protecting yourself against a variant exhibiting doubling behavior.

NOT UPDATED Variant data, national (Walgreens), October 25:

Lambert here: BQ.1* moving along quite briskly.

NOT UPDATED Variant data, national (CDC), October 22 (Nowcast off):

BQ.1* moving along quite briskly. New York/New Jersey (Region 2) numbers are higher:

NOT UPDATED As check, since New York is a BQ.1* hotbed, New York hospitalization, updated November 11:

Lambert here: For the first time in awhile, an almost imperceptible decline. Let’s wait and see.

Deaths

Death rate (Our World in Data):

Total: 1,100,296 – 1,100,127 = 169 (169 * 365 = 61,685, which is today’s YouGenicist™ number for “living with” Covid (quite a bit higher than the minimizers would like, though they can talk themselves into anything. If the YouGenicist™ metric keeps chugging along like this, I may just have to decide this is what the powers-that-be consider “mission accomplished” for this particular tranche of death and disease).

It’s nice that for deaths I have a simple, daily chart that just keeps chugging along, unlike everything else CDC and the White House are screwing up or letting go dark, good job.

• Total deaths in the US have not decreased as much as one might think:

• “Official mortality data for England reveal systematic undercounting of deaths occurring within first two weeks of Covid-19 vaccination” (preprint) [ResearchGate]. “For both covid and non-covid deaths, the two weeks of post first vaccination deaths appear to have been omitted from the ONS dataset. This pattern is repeated in all age groups over 60. A variety of factors could have led to deaths in the first 14 days being omitted in the ONS dataset, including miscategorisation, reporting lags and data handling or transcription errors. The dataset is therefore corrupted, making any inferences about vaccine efficacy or safety that are reliant on the data, moot. Accordingly, the ONS should publicly withdraw their dataset and call for the retraction of any claims made by others that are based upon it.” • Oh. From March 2022. Still germane? Readers?

Stats Watch

Inflation: “United States Producer Price Inflation MoM” [Trading Economics]. “The Producer Price Index for final demand in the US rose 0.2% month-over-month in October of 2022, the same as a downwardly revised 0.2% increase in September and below market forecasts of 0.4%. Goods cost went up 0.6%, the largest advance since a 2.2% rise in June, mainly pushed by a 5.7% jump in gasoline cost. Prices for diesel fuel, fresh and dry vegetables, residential electric power, chicken eggs, and oil field and gas field machinery also advanced. In contrast, the index for passenger cars declined 1.5%. Meanwhile, services cost fell 0.1%, the first decline since November of 2020. Prices for fuels and lubricants retailing were down 7.7%…”

Manufacturing: “United States NY Empire State Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The NY Empire State Manufacturing Index surged 13.6 points to 4.5 in November 2022, compared with market expectations of -5.0 and pointing to the first month of improvement in the New York State’s business activity since July. New orders decreased slightly, while shipments expanded modestly. Delivery times were little changed, and inventories grew significantly. Labor market indicators pointed to a solid increase in employment and a longer average workweek.”

* * *

Shipping: “FedEx Freight to begin driver furloughs next month” [Freight Waves]. “FedEx Freight, the less-than-truckload arm of FedEx Corp. and the nation’s largest LTL carrier, said Saturday it will furlough an undetermined number of drivers starting in early December… The action was taken in response to slowing macroeconomic conditions that have impacted LTL demand in recent weeks, the unit said. The LTL segment, which has shown very strong growth coming out of the pandemic, has seen volumes level off recently due to economic uncertainty caused by high inflation and recession concerns.”

The Bezzle: “prosecution futures,” good call from 2017 (!):

Tech:

The Economy: “About 37% of small businesses, which between them employ almost half of all Americans working in the private sector, were unable to pay their rent in full in October” [Unusual Whales]. n = 4789. “Rent delinquency rates among US small businesses increased significantly [in October], a new report shows. About 37% of small businesses, which between them employ almost half of all Americans working in the private sector, were unable to pay their rent in full in October. That’s according to a survey from Boston-based Alignable, a network of 7 million small business members. It’s up seven percentage points from last month and is now at the highest pace this year, the survey showed.”

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 69 Greed (previous close: 63 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 58 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Nov 15 at 1:02 PM EST. Holy moley! Moving along quite nicely to Extreme Greed!

The Gallery

“Spotlight: Canadian Abstract Expressionist Jean-Paul Riopelle’s Work Takes Center Stage in His Native Quebec” [ArtNet]. “Utilizing a wide array of media, including aerosol paint, stencils, and collage, alongside traditional materials like lithography and acrylic paint, Riopelle’s signature style is marked by experimentation, color acuity, and dense compositions.” • I’m a big fan of Quebec Abstract Expressionism, which I think can stand with the more well-known New York school, and has the additional advantage, AFAIK, of not being funded by spooks.

Zeitgeist Watch

“Permanent Jewelry Locks In Customers, Sets Off Metal Detectors” [Wall Street Journal]. “People are getting hooked on permanent jewelry that requires a special tool or scissors to remove. Fans of the welded, soldered or securely fastened jewelry say they love not having to think about losing expensive pieces or fiddling with finicky clasps.” • Seeking permanence where there is none to be had?

Class Warfare

“Boilermakers’ union becomes third to reject tentative contract deal” [Trains]. “The boilermakers’ union that represents 300 railroad workers has rejected their tentative agreement with the U.S. Class I systems, becoming the third labor organization to give a new contract a thumbs down…. But the two largest unions — the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, and the SMART-TD that represents conductors — won’t announce their ballot results until Nov. 21. Industry observers believe BLET and SMART-TD are likely to vote down their agreements, setting up the prospect of the first nationwide railroad strike since one that led to a brief lockout in 1992.”

Inflation and real wages:

News of the Wired

“Please Don’t Put Your Suitcase on the Bed, Ever” [Pocket]. • The wheels are filthy!

Reminds me of Gibson and Sterling’s The Difference Engine:

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Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From ChetG:

ChetG writes: “Attached are two autumn photos. The first is somewhat flat but an interesting autumn pattern; the second is my favorite, combining color and the sense of distance. Both come from the bordering game land and are taken today, on mostly non-hunting Sunday.”

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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84 comments

    1. Realist

      Probably wayward Ukrainian air defence.

      Besides, what are they going to do about it that doesn’t end up with a further 37,000,000 polish casualties?

      1. Skip Intro

        Pictures of the missile apparently match an S-300, i.e. AFU air defense. It seems like a very convenient provocation.

    2. Louis Fyne

      a Russian missile has a 500kg warhead. such warhead leaves a BIG crater.

      highly likely that this is a S-300 missile

      1. anon in so cal

        Likely a Ukraine 5V55 missile of the S-300P anti-aircraft missile system that landed in Hrubieszów in the Lublin Voivodeship of Poland on the border with Ukraine.

    3. Old Sovietologist

      After what happened in Moldova this isn’t totally unexpected and just before the G20.

      I wondered if British Intelligence would have the time to cook something up before the G20 maybe they have.

      This will be milked by NATO to enable the Ukrainian’s to get better air defence and long-range missiles. There won’t be a NATO intervention well there’s a 1% chance of it happening.

    4. Greg

      At this point it seems pretty clear that the explosions were at least one S300, possibly both. The range on those is limited to 100km in the air, probably less than 200km on ground. Unless Russia is for unknown reasons playing games with unsuitable systems in the very south-easternmost corner of Belarus, it’s probably from Lviv air defence.

      I’m waiting for the connection to be made that the casualties included a tractor, which everyone online knows were the heroes of the battle of Kiev. This is probably Russia getting revenge for the theft of so many tanks.

    5. michael99

      AP is now reporting the following:

      Three U.S. officials said preliminary assessments suggested the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian one amid the crushing salvo against Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure Tuesday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

      That assessment and Biden’s comments at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia contradict information earlier Tuesday from a senior U.S. intelligence official who told the AP that Russian missiles crossed into Poland.

      https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-zelenskyy-kherson-9202c032cf3a5c22761ee71b52ff9d52?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_01

  2. fresno dan

    So I don’t have live cable TV anymore, so I didn’t watch Dave Chappelle on Saturday night live – actually I usually never make it past 9 pm.
    So I read the transcript, and I have to say, I think Chappelle has the best or truest analysis of Trump I have ever read.
    https://www.newsweek.com/dave-chappelle-snl-opening-monologue-read-full-jokes-1759195

    (Chappelle) …. And watching the news now they’re declaring the end of the Trump era. Now okay, I could see how in New York you might believe this is the end of his era. I’m just being honest with you, I live in Ohio amongst the poor whites. A lot of you don’t understand why Trump was so popular but I get it because I hear it every day. He’s very loved. And the reason he’s loved is because people in Ohio have never seen somebody like him. He’s what I call an honest liar. And I’m not joking right now, he’s an honest liar. That first debate, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve never seen a white male billionaire screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘This whole system is rigged,’ he said. And across the stage was white woman Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama sitting there looking at him like, ‘No it’s not.’

    I said, ‘Now wait a minute bro, it’s what he said.’ And the moderator said, ‘Well Mr. Trump if, in fact, the system is rigged as you suggest, what would be your evidence?’ Remember what he said, bro? He said, ‘I know the system is rigged because I use it.’ I said Goddamn. And then he pulled out an Illuminati membership card, chopped a line of cocaine up in it and [mimics sniffing].

    No one ever heard someone say something so true and then Hillary Clinton tried to punch him in the taxes. She said, ‘This man doesn’t pay his taxes,’ he said, ‘That makes me smart.’ And then he said, ‘If you want me to pay my taxes, then change the tax code. But I know you won’t because your friends and your donors enjoy the same tax breaks that I do.’ And with that, my friends, a star was born. No one had ever seen anything like that. No one had ever seen somebody come from inside of that house outside and tell all the commoners we are doing everything that you think we are doing inside of that house. And he just went right back in the house and started playing the game again.
    =========================================
    Now, I think Trump can point things out that although obviously true, the Washington establishment just can’t acknowledge, and that says something very important about how this country is truly run. However, I don’t think Trumps wants to reform anything, after all, Trump admits the system works well for him and all rich people – pointing that out doesn’t mean Trump will do anything about it… But he can say some true things that no other major politician will.

      1. Realist

        The funniest part was when he said, “If they’re Black, its a gang, if they’re italian, it’s a mob and if they’re j3wish, it’s a coincidence and you should never talk about it”.

        I’d love to know the backstory of this appearance!

    3. Carolinian

      Thanks. I agree with you and Chappelle–it’s all about the authenticity. Compare and contrast with Michelle and her delicate fee fees. You’d think she never heard of “dealing with someone Chicago style.” Trump gives her the vapors but Dubya is just a big teddy bear.

      The problem with Trump is that for all his boasting, as a president he was a flop. If you are going to go around making enemies then you do have to go to the trouble to defeat them in order to succeed. He’s too much of the insult comic to be a good politician.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > The problem with Trump is that for all his boasting, as a president he was a flop. If you are going to go around making enemies then you do have to go to the trouble to defeat them in order to succeed. He’s too much of the insult comic to be a good politician.

        Yes and no:

        1) Ended TPP

        2) Operation Warp Speed (squandered by Biden)

        3) Actually decreased poverty with the CARES Act (which far surpassed what Obama did after the Crash, pragmatically and ideologically)

        4) No land wars (in Ukraine or anywhere. Yes, drones. I said “land wars”).

        5) Preferred although was not allowed to implement a more rational policy toward Russia and Syria

        Sure, there are downsides, but that’s not a bad record and compares favorably to Biden’s. Of course, he won’t run on any of it.

        I think Trump, the comedian, is a fine politician. He did, after all, win the Presidency after slicing through not one but two party establishments. Trump’s issue was that he was not good at government, because 1) he was a bad boss, 2) he couldn’t hire good people because PMC aghastitude, across parties, led to a professional services strike, so his staffing was always too thin and not good enough (no James Baker, not even a Dick Cheney), 3) he didn’t understand or care about how governing is done (Bush had problems #2, due to evangelicals in his base*, and #3 to a lesser degree), and 4) because from the first day of his administration, Democrats never accepted his legitimacy as an elected President and co-opted the spooks and the press to cripple his administration and punish anyone who worked for it. (It may have been that Trump actually believed that when he was elected President, people would necessarily follow his orders, as if he were the CEO of America).

        I agree that Trump, then and now, was insufficiently ruthless. (For example, he should never have conceded on Flynn.) But it’s not clear to me how Trump could have built a team that would have, for example, ensured that his orders — as Commander in Chief!! — to withdraw from Syria (another good policy) were actually carried out.

        Perhaps DeSantis would be better at that; the above is what a “Smart Trump” would look like. However, I don’t know what DeSantis’s views on foreign policy and The Blob are. If DeSantis decides that, in Washington, warmongering is the better part of valor, he could end up worse than Trump or Biden.

        NOTE * No, Liberty University’s law school is not comparable to Harvard.

        1. HMP

          I can’t speak to his views on foreign policy and the Blob, but he has spent a lot of time with some nasty characters in places like Gitmo and Fallujah. Here’s a bio:

          [8] DeSantis then attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 2005 with a Juris Doctor cum laude.
          [9] DeSantis received his Reserve Naval officer’s commission and assignment to the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) in 2004 at the U.S. Naval Reserve Center in Dallas, Texas, while still a student at Harvard Law School.
          [10] He completed Naval Justice School in 2005.
          [11] Later that year, he received orders to the JAG Trial Service Office Command South East at Naval Station Mayport, Florida, as a prosecutor
          [12] In 2006, he was promoted from lieutenant, junior grade to lieutenant. He worked for the commander of Joint Task Force-Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), working directly with detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Joint Detention Facility.
          [13] In 2007, DeSantis reported to the Naval Special Warfare Command Group in Coronado, California, where he was assigned to SEAL Team One and deployed to Iraq with the troop surge as the Legal Advisor to the SEAL Commander, Special Operations Task Force-West in Fallujah.

        2. Henry Moon Pie

          I don’t know what his views are, but he has spent a lot of time around some pretty nasty Blob characters, the throat-slitting, water-boarding kind. From his bio:

          [9] DeSantis received his Reserve Naval officer’s commission and assignment to the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) in 2004 at the U.S. Naval Reserve Center in Dallas, Texas, while still a student at Harvard Law School.
          [10] He completed Naval Justice School in 2005.
          [11] Later that year, he received orders to the JAG Trial Service Office Command South East at Naval Station Mayport, Florida, as a prosecutor
          [12] In 2006, he was promoted from lieutenant, junior grade to lieutenant. He worked for the commander of Joint Task Force-Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), working directly with detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Joint Detention Facility.
          [13] In 2007, DeSantis reported to the Naval Special Warfare Command Group in Coronado, California, where he was assigned to SEAL Team One and deployed to Iraq with the troop surge as the Legal Advisor to the SEAL Commander, Special Operations Task Force-West in Fallujah.

        3. fresno dan

          I’m gonna keep that – nice succint summary of Trump. There are lots of real things to criticise Trump for. But not paying taxes, not too bright Hillary, how is it that Trump hasn’t been convicted of anything??? Under state or Federal prosecutors, of either party – for decades?

    4. Steve H.

      I believe it was subversive in structure.

      > I know Jewish people have been through terrible things all over the world but but you can’t blame that on Black Americans. {DEAD SILENCE} You just can’t. {DEAD SILENCE} You know what {woo} I mean? Thanks for the one person that said woo.

      Contrast with this toward the end, invoking great laughter:

      > Now you see Kanye walking around L.A. barefoot with his chain on.

      Wait, WTF? That’s not what he said, this is what he said.

      > Now you see Kanye walking around L.A. barefoot with his chain out.

      That, shall we say, has a subtler nuance. Meanwhile, where earlier the crowd was dead silent, here they are willing to joy in the image of a very successful black person brought down to scrub-n* level.

      Chappelle had once taken a break when he saw a white man laughing too hard at a joke about blacks eating chicken. I’ll suggest this confirms a hypothesis he was testing.

    5. Lambert Strether Post author

      > And the moderator said, ‘Well Mr. Trump if, in fact, the system is rigged as you suggest, what would be your evidence?’ Remember what he said, bro? He said, ‘I know the system is rigged because I use it.’ I said Goddamn. And then he pulled out an Illuminati membership card, chopped a line of cocaine up in it and [mimics sniffing].

      “Honest liar” is a great category (and paradoxical of course; reasoning from contradictory premises one can arrive at any conclusion, which Trump often does. This is a great find

      Ya know the wierdest thing here? SNL was actually funny. When did that happen?

  4. Roger Blakely

    RE: LAX sewershed

    It’s actually the Hyperion sewage plant located on the shore just north of LAX. It serves all of Downtown, Hollywood, West LA and South LA, which holds 3.5 million people (as the figure notes). The data one month old.

    Los Angeles County Public Health has not discussed the data for three weeks. They recently came up with a model to try to characterize prevalence of SARS-CoV-2. They are combining data from four very different sewage plants in Los Angeles County. They are using the July 2022 peak as an upper benchmark. They start worrying at 30% and really start worrying at 60%. Three weeks ago we were at 25%. They might discuss the sewage number at Thursday’s media briefing.

    1. lambert strether

      Awesome. Please keep us informed.

      There is naturally no way to connect CDC dots to real locations, because they have invented their own nomenclature, CDC, good job

  5. Pat

    ‘I’m shocked, I tell you shocked. That the Democrats cannot pass a bill codifying Roe V. Wade.”
    Right up there with gambling in Casablanca.

    If they didn’t have the votes before the midterms, how the hell did anyone believe their ads and rhetoric about protecting women’s rights after an election where they could lose one or both Houses of Congress. The one time someone and I had a discussion about this I pointed out how many of the Democrats are pro Life, including many who were candidates in this election. And that the Democratic Party had NO promises from them to support any such legislation.

    You know that $600 that Lambert is still waiting on, well a whole lot of naive people will get as angry about student loans, women’s rights and yes even Climate change once they get that the Democrats cannot even pretend to do anything about it in the one House they will continue to hold. Some will forgive them, but others will understand that none of that should have been dependent on the elections to get passed in the first place.

    The one that will get the most amount slack in my opinion is Climate Change. it is amazing to me how much mileage they get out of the Paris Accords, and the utterly useless standards that would have required. But as more people struggle to pay their bills, and more people become targeted as criminals because of abortion, it will be harder and harder to ignore how useless the Democrats really are.

    1. Carolinian

      it will be harder and harder to ignore how useless the Democrats really are.

      But we’ve been saying that for years. Like Hillary they are the thing that wouldn’t leave. It would be nice though if the Dems at least dial back the big victory talk given that the “threat to democracy” Repubs got more overall votes last week.

      1. Pat

        True. But a lot of what kept it from being a red monsoon were younger voters. Most of what I mentioned weren’t my concerns, they were the reasons younger voters voted for Democrats. And it wasn’t even a week before Democratic leadership pretty much either watched as it happened or pulled the rug out from under them themselves. How many of those that just got told we tried too bad even as Democrats celebrated their “historic” win are going to show up next time?

        Mind you not showing up doesn’t hurt as bad as say kicking both parties to the curb for the rents too high candidate, which is what should be happening. But maybe someday we will get a real change vote. But in the meanwhile alienating people you are going to need in two years is not a plan.

  6. Jason Boxman

    I’ve been thinking lately that “COVID stupid” perhaps is a categorization for people. For example, Biden and Walensky are clearly COVID stupid, being in positions to be fully aware that COVID is airborne, and nonetheless promulgating policy that ignores this fact. I’d consider this different from people that are COVID naive, having been treated to the same false messaging again and again and therefore not knowing any better. Sadly this means even people that do pay attention to public health messaging, even from WHO and CDC, are therefore COVID naive. No one should have to follow the right people on the Twitter to get life saving public health information, sigh.

    But how many of our betters are COVID stupid and how many are actually just COVID naive?

    1. Geo

      Love that the first comment under the “president superspreader” Twitter link says: “He’s double vaxed and double boosted. He will be ok recovery wise even if has caught it again.”

      It’s hard to tell if people are Covid Stupid since so many were already stupid stupid.

    2. JTMcPhee

      I guess we are not supposed to attribute malevolence to actors when stupidity is a possible explanation for their behavior. After years of seeing the horrors that “Dems” have visited on us mopes, as they pad their paychecks and retirements with bribes from malevolent Chamber of Commerce businesses and rich sh!ts, and knowing from episodes like the Decline and Fall of AOC as she is schooled in how it’s done Inside the Beltway, I have to go with malevolence and misanthropy as the moving principle.

      One might almost hope the Deep State and Neocons get their way, and those missile parts that fell inside the Polish border get Wag The Dogged into full-blown no-holds-barred nuclear war. Won’t be much of a Garden for the Joseph Borrells and Victoria Nulands to enjoy. Schadenfreude to the max!

    3. Lambert Strether Post author

      > I’ve been thinking lately that “COVID stupid” perhaps is a categorization for people.

      Leaving the classic question aside (“stupid, or evil?*”) I think the causality is far more rich than personal character (see “Why Do They *Think* That?,” excerpted above).

      “Some are born stupid, some achieve stupid, and some have stupid thrust upon them.” I think our elites work very hard to “thrust” stupidity on people, Covid providing a wonderful worked example of the process under extreme conditions.

      NOTE * There is a line of thought that views evil as a form of laziness. Akin to stupidity, at least among those with the ability to do better.

    1. hunkerdown

      When people complain about “woke”, I think they are really complaining about the devotional liberal perfectionism McCrudden slavishly calls “Rule of Law”. Contrary to McFuddles, the liberal state uses moral progressivism as the alibi for many of the high crimes required to perpetuate the liberal state, usually formulated in mythical time as, “but he’s evolved”. If Britain is finally losing its fanciness, it’s about time.

    2. JohnA

      Interesting that he talks about the ‘rule of law’ and then suddenly in the middle of the article blurs everything by talking about ‘the rules based international order’ which is some kind of Orwellian speak by western politicians that throws law out of the window and means rules are what we say they are for our convenience at any one time.

  8. Geo

    “FedEx will furlough an undetermined number of drivers starting in early December”

    This seems like an extra negative sign considering December is Xmas shipping season.

    “Permanent Jewelry”
    Guess thieves are gonna have to start bringing cleavers with them.

    1. petal

      In the last several months, a few suppliers I use have switched their shipper from FedEx to UPS after having used FedEx for as long as I’ve been purchasing from them.

    2. hunkerdown

      Pawn will be a very interesting experience for them, no doubt. The 1/4-page cartoons doodle themselves.

  9. tegnost

    : I can’t call a winter surge

    I know more people with covid now than at any other time since it started, and none of those people including me reported it to the county…
    One guy got paxlovid so he’s probably counted, another specifically said he didn’t want his case recorded because he’s against the county doing something to restrict people or thereabouts…
    so reported cases are a bare minimum of the reality
    n 95 or better…

  10. lyman alpha blob

    RE: President Superspreader?

    That’s CoronaJoe to you, you dog faced pony soldier. And he can still do 50 reps of bench pressing you with your heavy boots on, even with the rona.

  11. NorD94

    ** news bulletin from Planet-Jha **

    White House’s Jha isn’t predicting a holiday Covid surge this year
    https://www.statnews.com/2022/11/15/white-houses-jha-isnt-predicting-a-holiday-covid-surge-this-year/

    Ashish Jha, the White House Covid-19 coordinator, predicted Tuesday that the United States will not be heading toward another Covid-19 surge driven by holiday gatherings akin to the Omicron wave in 2021.

    “We are in a very different place and we will remain in a different place,” said Jha, who noted that roughly 90% of Americans have received at least one Covid-19 vaccine and “a large chunk of Americans have gotten infected.”

    Jha, who was speaking at the STAT Summit in Boston, added the caveat that there’s always a possibility the virus could significantly mutate – like it did with the Omicron variant – but “I believe we are in a way better place no matter what Mother Nature throws at us.”

    “We are now at a point where I believe if you’re up to date on your vaccines, you have access to treatments … there really should be no restrictions on people’s activities,” Jha said. “I’m pretty much living life the way I was living life in 2019.”

    1. ambrit

      The official White House public health policy now is Maximal Denialism.
      Some brave journalist should ask the White House Spokesthing one afternoon; “What is this Administration’s preferred reality?”

    2. Objective Ace

      90% of Americans have received at least one Covid-19 vaccine

      What in the world is he talking about? Its nowhere near 90 percent. It’s one thing to deny reality–its another to deny the stats your own government agency is publishing

  12. Tommy Strange

    Damn this site is so good. Even though a crazy anti capitalist lefty……… since the 90’s, I’ve always thought small businesses should have rent control in SF…….then you all post that insane number. We are surely going into a deep recession. …

    1. Old Sarum

      Here in Australia, there is an expression: the “Big End Of Town”.

      I can only be amused when the proles vote against their economic interest . And my laugh is louder when small business people vote for politicians and parties who favour the big end of town. The laugh gets louder as the monopolies and cartels get larger.

      I am a capitalist by nature but as the editor of Waugh’s editor of the ‘Daily Beast’ put it: “Up to a point’.

  13. BeliTsari

    Interesting thing just happened. A REAL well known ARTS documentary directory & my sweetie were denigrating a Netflix film not really aimed at affluent boomer crackers. I’d been asking friends/acquaintances who’d likely waited a lifetime for a documentary & their universal gripe was a) the director’s ambling monotone & b) where’s a website to ascertain, WHERE & HOW to access the most desirable films mentioned. Whine, whine, gripe, GRIPE! WE boomers is CRAZY!

    https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/is_that_black_enough_for_you

  14. FreeMarketApologist

    I’m a huge fan of the Canadian abstractionists (not just the Quebecois). The original group, known as Painters 11, was very interested in the work of the US ab ex painters, visited NY frequently (some studied under Hans Hoffman), and talked with Clement Greenberg — who encouraged them to not copy what was going on in NY.

    Riopelle was in a long-term on again /off again, high proof relationship with abstract expressionist painter Joan Mitchell. Both amazing painters, no overlap in styles.

  15. semper loquitur

    re: Noah optimism allowed

    Optimistic about America, huh Noah? Why, because your favored wing of Team Purple didn’t get annihilated in the last election? Some juicy bits in this piece of high fantasy:

    “But I think politics can’t be left out if we want a holistic picture of where our society and our economy are headed.”

    Does this statement even need to be made? Is the notion of leaving out politics from a discussion of society and economics even valid to contemplate?

    “Right now I see stability — both political and social — as the most important issue in the United States.”

    Allow me to interpret the $hit-lib babble for you, “stability” means “business as usual”. A variant is “nothing will fundamentally change”.

    * spits bad taste out of mouth

    “And it’s for that reason that I’m very happy and relieved about the results of the 2022 midterms — no matter who ends up controlling the House.”

    Yes, cause all our problems are solved when the corporate-wh0re Democrats are in charge. That’s how Noah spells “democracy”. “Democrat.”

    “Note that democracy winning the election is not the same as Democrats winning.”

    Perhaps not numerically for Noah, but ideologically? Yeppers.

    “Trump probably still has a good chance to win the 2024 GOP primary, simply based on the strength of his personality cult.”

    At this point in our sad history, I’m inclined anyone who thinks anyone in power is on their side is a cultist.

    “This result also makes me optimistic, because it will encourage bipartisanship.”

    Right, cause the country doesn’t need strong, clearly aligned decision making to address it’s quiver of woes, it needs the homey, banjo-fueled dickering over the bones of the body politic that we have been treated to for decades. Tell the people living under bridges or those without healthcare that we need compromise.

    “I’m starting to see a glimmer of light up ahead for this country.”

    Me too Noah, those are burning cars…

  16. semper loquitur

    Wow, the dorm-rats at Jacobin need to lay off the hopium bong:

    “Put the mainstream Democrats aside. After the midterms, more left-wing insurgents are going to the House, Bernie Sanders has two strong allies in the Senate, and progressive ballot measures passed everywhere. Election night was a good night for the Left.”

    Bernie has two, two!, strong allies in the Senate?! It’s settled then! He’ll have company when he doesn’t do a fu(king thing with his power. And let’s see how long those progressive ballot measures last, about as long as a county fair goldfish, I wager.

    “(The latter triggered years of furious business efforts to kill the measure, which finally succeeded in 2020, when the state supreme court struck it down.)”

    Get used to that, Dorothy, you ain’t in Kansas no more because:

    “The victories of these insurgent candidates are especially important in a house that will have a slim, possibly single-digit, majority, meaning Republicans and significant numbers of corporate Democrats will likely collaborate on a host of retrograde policies that will need to be blocked.”

    That didn’t take long.

    “Despite an outrageous scandal that saw Welch pushing to protect opioid makers’ interests while trading stocks in those same companies, his addition to the Senate, together with Fetterman, will help tilt the upper chamber somewhat to the left, and will give the usually isolated Sanders two progressive allies.”

    Those are the two “strong allies” that Sanders has gained?! A rich kid LARPing as a plumber’s assistant and a drug dealer? Clear skies ahead!

    “Fetterman and Balint were both endorsed by WFP, which had a particularly good election cycle after making its first concerted foray into races at the federal level.”

    Which is the Kiss of Death in terms of actual progress. Isn’t the WFP just a siphon for the Democrats? It seems I’ve heard that claim made around here before.

    “This cycle, sixteen of DSA’s thirty endorsed candidates won their elections. Though three of those winners were House incumbents Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush, and Rashida Tlaib, most of the losing candidates fell in primary elections earlier in the year.”

    Tells you what you need to know about the DSA. The Fraud Squad? Great.

    “Having watched another Sanders ally, Nina Turner, get both of her congressional campaigns sunk by a flood of outside spending from pro-Israel groups, several candidates moved to the center on Israel and Palestine.”

    Expect more of this, on a medley of issues. If any of these “socialists” and “progressives” manage to maintain their values in the face of the DC meatgrinder I’ll be shocked.

    “Now the question is what those who have won elected office do with their newfound power and stronger numbers.”

    Indeed. I’ll grant the writer that this article was a lot meatier than that piece of dryer lint Noah Smith (rapped out. But it’s like the cop who wants to change the system from the inside. The system either changes you or it spits you out. It’s not just the s(umbags currently in power who will fight tooth and nail, they are only the mask on the rotting corpse. There are far more dire powers laying in wait for agents of real change.

    1. Acacia

      Indeed. Anyone who describes Democrats in the House as “left-wing insurgents” needs their lights checked.

    2. The Rev Kev

      Right now those left-wing insurgents and progressives are still voting for a proxy war with Russia but can’t be bothered anymore with healthcare at home. Priorities. And here is how it goes-

      ‘Defund Ukraine
      @DoctorFishbones
      Democrats:”We won! We won!”
      Next day: “Sorry, no student debt relief”
      Next week: “Sorry, not codifying Roe”
      Next month: “We’re sending $100 billion to Ukrainian Nazis” ‘

      https://twitter.com/DoctorFishbones/status/1592296139029712897

    3. Pat

      There was some rebellion by WFP where they honestly tried to fulfill their mission, but NY’s rules on ballot lines allowed Cuomo to beat them into submission. He changed their platform, outlawed some of their candidates and put his people in to keep them in line.

      They have become nothing more than a sop to unhappy Dems who want to leave the fold but are not angry enough to notice that all of their candidates are the same ones they are refusing to vote for on the Democratic line.

  17. Wukchumni

    I heard My Kevin (since ’07) is having a séance with the spirits of John Boehner, really doing anything to grasp that brass ring-heck he’s even hit up Donkey Show members in order to stroke their egos and sway their vote, hopefully garnering the gavel before gobble-gobble.

  18. Karl

    RE: The Bendix Central Air Digital Computer (CADC)

    I love nerding out on stuff like this. I am utterly amazed by this piece of 1950’s technology used in fighter jets. One thing about the war and the MIC: it advances technology. I mean, consider the quantum changes brought about by WW II. Of course, the luddite in me also questions whether these quantum changes were such a good thing.

    In the twitter thread, the name is corrected to Central Air Data Computer, clarifying that this is NOT a digital computer but analog (computing with gears and cams, not electrical pulses).

    1. The Rev Kev

      Agreed, this is great engineering this especially in light of the fact that it was put into fighter planes like the F-86, F-101, F-104, F-105, F-106, and F-111. It should be noted that in the same era when they were really packing the electronics into these same fighters, the Air Force was telling their fighter pilots not to make hard turns if they could – as it was hard on the electronics.

    2. Jason Boxman

      You would have loved the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s exhibit on finding longitude, of which this was probably a part. They did cover a variety of aerospace devices after delving into the nautical ones. One of the best exhibits I’d ever been to. This was back in 2019, though. Sadly all I remember is it is awesome. But the level of engineering required just to get a ship from one side of the pond to the other in the right place is extraordinary, and you don’t realize the extreme amount of sciencing required to make things work. (Like with the story about how the second is measured I linked to yesterday.)

      1. rowlf

        Well, ships and submarines have a lot more space for mechanical and electronic computers, so more room to start there and then make it smaller and lighter for aircraft and missiles. (Ship fire control computers are amazing too. How to track a target with large cannons while moving.) I was amazed by the moving map table in a later WWII US sub.

        As much as I like inertial navigation systems (You’re on a spinning planet in a spinning solar system…) I always was amazed at the computerized astral navigation systems developed in the early 1960s for aircraft and missiles. Hard to fake or jam the stars versus electronic signals.

        1. Jason Boxman

          Not sure I’d want to do correction burns with what they had available on Apollo but then I’m not rushing to sign up for a pilots license either. I like the ground

        2. digi_owl

          Supposedly the tomahawks fired from the gulf in 91 had to detour through Iran because the terrain in Iraq didn’t have enough features for the missile’s terrain tracking radar make use of. So instead they flew over the Iranian mountains in order to strike Baghdad.

    3. digi_owl

      Ages ago someone pointed me to an old naval training movie about a similar contraption used for calculating the right direction and elevation of a ship’s cannons for them to hit the enemy. It involved several seamen taking reports from around the ship and adjusting dials accordingly, and would then get back the numbers that they needed to pass to the gunners before the next salvo.

  20. C.O.

    More for the Bonnie Henry dossier, from the Times Colonist today:

    https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/masking-advisable-but-not-required-yet-in-bc-dr-bonnie-henry-6107198 Masking advisable but not required yet in B.C.: Dr. Bonnie Henry

    This quote summarizes Henry’s position, although stated by a different official:

    “Our first line of defence remains vaccination,” said Dr. Brian Conway, president of the Vancouver Infectious Disease Centre. “Masking for sure is the additional line of defence.”

    But what did she say?

    Henry said that COVID infection and vaccination have resulted in a “very high level of population immunity and the number of people at risk for serious outcomes from COVID-19 has dropped significantly.”

    “Even amongst the frailest elderly populations in long-term care facilities, most vaccinated residents with COVID-19 experience mild symptoms,” she said.

    “Population immunity,” the polite version of “herd immunity” that Henry is trying out since “community immunity” didn’t stick and she really wants to avoid talking about the general population the way it seems officials think about it.

  21. Jen

    Why do they *think* that? Really fascinating read. This bit jumped out at me:

    “Group consensus and conformity issues are also at the forefront, here. For example, during the early months of the pandemic, I was amazed at how often very highly educated women I knew, all completely capable of reading the scientific literature on Covid (and in fact, they were reading it) were repeatedly asking a friend group what others in the group were doing with regard to risk reduction. I kept suggesting that they should seek this information from experts rather than from friends, but they weren’t having it. ”

    I’ve noticed this behavior among my women friends on non-Covid related issues. It drives me [family blogging] nuts. A group of us go cross country skiing. “Are you bringing hand warmers?” “I don’t know, are you?” “Are you going to wear/bring xyz?” “Are you?” For whatever reason I am preternaturally immune to this crap, and I find it somewhere between fascinating and appalling that so many women I know seem to need the validation of consensus to make decisions.

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > highly educated women I knew, all completely capable of reading the scientific literature on Covid (and in fact, they were reading it) were repeatedly asking a friend group

      I noticed that too, but I think if the government and the public health establishment had been sending a non-eugenicist message, “educated opinion” might have been different.

  22. The Rev Kev

    “Michelle Obama: Trump victory ‘still hurts’ after six years”

    Maybe if she had gotten her old man to actually do something for most people instead of his buddies on Wall Street, that she wouldn’t have that serious case of butt-hurt. Just sayin.’

    1. Tom Doak

      Why do you suppose Michelle cared to do anything for most people any more than her husband did? She might have cared even less.

      1. digi_owl

        Until the latest feminist wave, the wives were often supposedly the power behind the throne in (US) politics…

  23. Wukchumni

    I dissed him on a Monday and my heart stood still
    Da doo Ron Ron Ron
    Doo doo Ron Ron
    Somebody told me that Murdoch will foot his 2024 bill
    Da doo Ron Ron Ron
    Doo doo Ron Ron

    Yes, my heart stood still
    Yes, to think i’d be second bill
    And when he ignored my bravado shrill
    Da doo Ron Ron Ron
    Doo doo Ron Ron
    Knew what he was doing back in ’17 when he caught my eye
    Da doo Ron Ron Ron
    Doo doo Ron Ron
    He looked so quiet but my oh my
    Da doo Ron Ron Ron
    Doo doo Ron Ron

    Yes, he caught my eye
    Yes, my oh my
    And when he got the endorsement to be my guy
    Da doo Ron Ron Ron
    Doo doo Ron Ron

    Jilted me and no I scratch your back-you scratch mine pay
    Da doo Ron Ron Ron
    Doo doo Ron Ron
    Someday soon I’m gonna make him rue the day
    Da doo Ron Ron Ron
    Doo doo Ron Ron

    Yes, he looked so fine
    Yes, I’ll make him whine
    And when he ignored me @ home
    Da doo Ron Ron Ron
    Doo doo Ron Ron

    Da Doo Ron Ron, by the Crystals

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0dikX80Ed8

      1. Pat

        I think of it as the way public opinion congealed around Ukraine. But I see propaganda and ad techniques everywhere recently.

      2. Wukchumni

        Was it over when the Germans bombed as his loan harbor?

        Hell no!

        Rumors of Trump’s political demise are greatly exaggerated…

  24. Jason Boxman

    More CDC malfeasance:

    “The lack of evidence regarding the effectiveness of the Title 42 policy is especially egregious in view of C.D.C.’s previous conclusion that the use of quarantine and travel restrictions, in the absence of evidence of their utility, is detrimental to efforts to combat the spread of the communicable disease,” the judge wrote in the 49-page ruling.

    (bold mine)

    Because, of course quarantines don’t work; Just look at China, completely overrun by… whatever. It’s not even funny anymore. The Centers for Disease is true to form.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/us/immigration-title-42-judge.html

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