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2:00PM Water Cooler 10/16/2023

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Bird Song of the Day

Barn Swallow, Stevenson Rd. Game Farm and Compost, Tompkins, New York, United States.

* * *

Politics

“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

Two-front wars (1):

Shall we try for three?

Two-front wars (2):

For some definition of “afford.”

2024

Time for the Countdown Clock!

* * *

“Trump on Campaign Trail: Slightly Unhinged, Completely Unplugged” [RealClearPolitics]. “‘They’re going to do the electric vehicle nonsense, you know?’ Trump told the audience, in one early moment that sounded like a Seinfeld cold open. ‘You put a little circle around your house. You can’t go outside the circle, you’ll never come back.'” • Far be it from me to be The Donald Whisperer, but I think this was the piece of flotsam thrown up by Trump’s free association:

Then again:

“They pay millions of dollars in taxes!” Trump said. “Yet, when they’re taking a shower, they’re told to hurry up. You’re only allowed a small amount of water when you’re taking a shower. That’s why rich people from Beverly Hills, generally speaking, don’t smell so good. Their hygiene is not good. But it’s forced to be that way. So when you meet somebody with a beautiful house in Beverly Hills, you know that person is sort of disgusting under there.”

Dear me! The whole article well worth a read:

But amidst the doom and gloom, it’s laughter that seems to be Trump’s objective at these rallies. Even after the grim and depressing news from Israel, the former president didn’t deviate from a speaking style that can best be described as stand-up comedy. This is a president with Jewish grandchildren, remember, but the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust was treated with gallows humor: The first mention of Israel last Saturday evening in Cedar Rapids came with a quip at President Biden’s expense.

“He wasn’t Winston Churchill, let’s put it that way,” Trump said while critiquing the cautious initial response from the White House. Then Trump did his Winston Churchill impression.

Remember when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were actually touted as having political power, by West Wing brains? Turns out the comedian who did was…. Donald Trump. It’s a funny old world.

* * *

“New poll suggests President Biden may have Pennsylvania problem for 2024” [CBS]. “A Quinnipiac poll released last week shows Biden narrowly trailing Trump in a hypothetical matchup in the commonwealth. The same poll found Biden’s favorability rating among Pennsylvanians sits at just 39%…. U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Penn.) serves on the Biden campaign national advisory board. Boyle said sitting presidents have trailed in the past. ‘Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were all losing in the polls,’ Boyle said. ‘They all obviously went on to win reelection and win actually by quite a margin.’ Boyle said the president should continue to push his economic message of job creation and low unemployment. But some have questioned the frequent visits to Philadelphia at the expense of rallying support in other areas of the state.” • Yep. The Democrats seem constiutionally incapable of ever implementing an “Every County, Every Vote”-style campaign. All the way back to Obama strangling Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy.

* * *

“Dean Phillips starts calling New Hampshire Dems in step toward challenging Biden” [Politico (nippersdad)]. “Rep. Dean Phillips has begun making calls to Democratic operatives and officials in New Hampshire, the latest step he’s taken toward launching a primary challenge against President Joe Biden…. Phillips withdrew from House Democratic leadership earlier this month, amid concern that his flirtation with a primary bid was causing a distraction. He has met with Democratic donors over the summer about a potential run. ‘He’s doing the things you would do if you’re running — or if you’ve not officially decided and you’re trying to check what the reception would be,’ said a New Hampshire Democrat operative, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly…. Phillips, meanwhile, drew his own primary challenger this week when Ron Harris, a DNC executive committee member, announced a bid for Phillips’ congressional seat.”

“Who Is Potential Biden Primary Challenger Dean Phillips? Millionaire Former Gelato Exec Turned Congressman Would Be President’s Most Prominent Opponent” [Forbes]. Gelato? Did he sell any to Nancy? ‘Asked by Forbes in 2017 if he believes business executives make good politicians, Phillips responded: ‘Business people are rather humbled when they enter the legislative arena, because they are used to making decisions that are then implemented by people who report to them, but…I never make a decision without hearing two of the most polar opposite perspectives on any issue because I want to know how the extremes feel.'” • So, Overton Window firmly nailed in place? Fun fact: Phillips is “Dear Abby”‘s grandson He is also “Problem Solvers Caucus” member (Josh Gottheimer, D-Private Equity, co-chair).

* * *

“Spurious Spy Now Runs RFK, Jr. Campaign” [Spy Talk]. Kucinich out, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy in: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign for president is now being run by his daughter-in-law, who happens to be a former employee of the CIA—the same agency that RFK Jr. believes played a role in the 1963 murder of his uncle, the 35th president, and his father…. Fox Kennedy was a “NOC,” one of the agency’s operatives working under “non-official cover.” NOCs work overseas as private individuals without any apparent affiliation with a U.S. government agency or embassy, which leaves them vulnerable to being caught spying.” • Lots of odd detail, but “former employee of the CIA” is enough for me. Why? Fox Kennedy also wrote a memoir, Life Undercover. Has anyone read it?

“Booze, beads and art among unclaimed gifts lavished upon billionaire Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker” [Associated Press]. “The COVID-19 crisis imbued the governor’s admirers with generosity. From March 2020 through December 2021, Pritzker received 33 gifts specifically in appreciation of his pandemic protocol, including some that seemed more personal: handmade face-coverings, items with inspirational messages, selections of food and a Gov. Pritzker bobblehead from the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum in Milwaukee. There also was ‘2:30 p.m. Man,’ a painting of a smiling Pritzker in acrylic by SeungRi “Victoria” Park, a Chicago schoolteacher and artist. ‘Every day at 2:30, he showed up on my TV,’ said Park, referring to Pritzker’s daily news conferences during the worst of the pandemic. ‘I don’t vote for any politicians, but I like him. I wanted to paint him. He reminded me of Buddha.’ Pritzker, the state’s third Jewish governor, was not a spiritual leader to Park, but his message resonated. ‘I don’t go with religion and I don’t go with politicians,” said Park, who has remained free of COVID-19 in the 3 1/2 years since the coronavirus crept into Illinois. ‘But I go with science.'” • Good for Pritzker. I don’t believe Newsom did this (perhaps his dyslexia got in the way). Trump did, of course.

“Democrats welcome mat for migrants is also fraying party’s base” [Albany Herald]. “With no firm plans in place and the only concrete advice to incoming migrants being Pritzker’s warning that ‘it’s gonna get cold in Chicago and New York very soon,’ cracks among the Democratic base, particularly among key ethnic and racial blocs, have emerged over spending taxpayer dollars and housing for migrants. Despite the cold political calculation of using human beings as political pawns in a larger federal game aimed at securing the nation’s southern border, Abbott’s strategy of spreading the pressure on the federal government may be working. ‘We of course are a welcoming state and have been caring for the people who’ve arrived. But we can’t bear the burden only ourselves,’ Pritzker said on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation‘ on his calls for assistance from Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration. ‘It seems like now is the moment to talk about border security and immigration reform. We want immigrants in the United States, we also want border security. It seems like there’s a compromise there,’ the Democratic governor said…. Now, with the leadership of the Republican-led U.S. House unsettled, prospects for a comprehensive immigration plan and significant federal aid to Chicago appear unlikely anytime soon.”

* * *

VA: “Editorial: Forget the morality play. For Dems, online sex scandal could spell disaster” [Richmond Times-Dispatch]. “It’s been more than five weeks since news broke that Susanna Gibson, the Democratic candidate running for the 57th District seat in the House of Delegates, livestreamed sex acts with her husband on a publicly accessible website. The revelation, first reported in The Washington Post, instantly became the talk of this year’s critical legislative election: All 140 seats of the General Assembly are on the ballot, and a narrow partisan split — Republicans hold the House by four seats; Democrats have a four-seat edge in the Senate — is the only thing standing in the way of complete Republican control of state government, not to mention Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s political future….. Gibson, a nurse practitioner who has made protecting abortion rights central to her campaign, has largely retreated from the public sphere since the scandal broke (she is, however, still canvassing and running political ads)…. So far, the scandal has barely registered as an actual campaign issue, at least not in the form of aggressive political advertising or public condemnations from her Republican opponent. Why, exactly, is harder to pinpoint. Gibson’s livestreams with her husband appear to be consensual, and didn’t break any laws. There’s a question of judgment, and broken social norms, but this isn’t sexual assault or predatory behavior — and for millennia, men have been doing far worse. ‘I don’t think anybody knows quite what to do with this story,’ says Richard Meagher, a political science professor at Randolph-Macon College. There’s no ‘Clintonesque” problem, Meagher says: ‘It’s just really hard in the post-Trump era to find any disqualifying events or experience that would prevent (candidates) from running. I just don’t know that the Democrats are going to abandon her because of this. People have very short memories these days.’ Time will tell. How much the state party has been willing to put into Gibson’s campaign since the scandal went public is unclear (state finance reports for September are due this week). And where voters fall on the morality of it all — whether Gibson is or isn’t fit for office — remains an open question.” • Well, at least Gibson didn’t work for the CIA. So there’s that.

* * *

Republican Funhouse

“House Likely to Pick Speaker This Week. But how or whom remains unclear” [Election Law Blog]. “As this round-up shows, it remains quite unclear who will emerge or how. Jim Jordan can only afford to lose four House Republicans. Punchbowl reports, however, that Mike Rogers of Alabama is organizing to oppose Jordan, and “[s]ources involved in the effort tell us that there are upwards of 10 lawmakers firmly in the ‘Never Jordan’ camp.” Politico is also reporting on this effort. Meanwhile, the Hill reports on both Jordon’s efforts to invoke the crisis to shore up support and Jeffries claims that informal conversations are afoot on a bi-partisan election of Speaker.” • Time for Jordan to head for the showers?

“The ‘Unprecedented’ House GOP Meltdown Isn’t as Novel as You Think. And There Is a Way Out” [Politico]. “Between 1937 and 1964, Democrats maintained a technical majority for all but four years (1947-49 and 1953-55). But in reality, an informal coalition of Southern Democrats and conservative Republicans denied national Democrats a functioning majority. By the time John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency, the House was so deadlocked and dysfunctional that it had all but given up on passing routine appropriations bills — strikingly similar to today…. As most students of history know, in the mid-1960s, national Democrats broke the conservative stranglehold in Congress. They did so for three reasons. First, Kennedy’s assassination gave the new president, Lyndon Johnson, an opportunity to call for bold action to “finish” the work of his slain predecessor. Johnson skillfully channeled the nation’s grief to launch a full-throated effort for civil rights and anti-poverty legislation. Second, the 1964 election cycle saw national Democrats sweep both House and Senate elections, replacing conservative Republicans with liberal Democrats and thus undermining the conservative coalition. Assuming no one wins a landslide majority in Congress in the current, polarized environment, the third reason is most instructive today. Between 1964 and 1968, moderate and liberal Republicans found common cause with national Democrats in Congress to form a new, informal governing majority that replaced the old conservative coalition.” • Heaven help us, the centrists on both sides of the aisle will discover they share a bond….

* * *

On polling:

My first Mastodon embed; let’s see how it goes!

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.

* * *

#COVID19

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

* * *

Vaccines

“Covid Nasal Vaccines Get A Boost” [Eric Topol, Ground Truths]. “While there is no major wave of Covid infections at the moment, the number of people who are still getting infected or reinfected each day is substantial. We have no good way to prevent these infections besides non-pharmacological interventions (masks, physical distancing, air ventilation and filtration, etc). Shots provide only moderate (30-40% reduction) and brief (<6-8 weeks) protection from infections. Pandemic fatigue is full blown; the world is doing all possible to move on even though the virus forges ahead on its evolutionary arc, destined to find new ways to infect (and mostly reinfect) more hosts. There are known variants, currently at low levels, that will be more problematic than what we are seeing right now (such as the FLips, recently reviewed) with a new wave likely to be seen in November. Despite our progress with updated XBB.1.5 monovalent vaccines and Paxlovid availability, these infections carry a risk, some of which is unpredictable, for severe Covid and Long Covid. The big gap in our armamentarium is an easy to administer, durable, potent, variant-proof, safe nasal vaccine that blocks infections and transmission." • A good review of the field of play, and the introduction laying out the reasonin behind nasal vaccines is very good. The Codagenix Phase 1 nasal vaccine ("CoviLiv") is "live-attenuated intranasal," so maybe we could get out of the mRNA box.

“Phase III Pivotal comparative clinical trial of intranasal (iNCOVACC) and intramuscular COVID 19 vaccine (Covaxin®)” [Nature]. I am embarassed to say I missed this (Twitter’s deterioration again, I think). Finally somebody tests Bharat’s nasal vaccine besides Bharat! From August, still germane. The Discussion: “In this report of the interim findings from a phase 3 clinical trial, we found that two weeks after a second vaccination with BBV154 [Bharat iNCOVACC], an intranasal, adenoviral-vectored SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, neutralization titres against wild-type (D614G) SARS-CoV-2 virus were superior to those observed two weeks after two doses of the intramuscular Covaxin vaccine. Similarly, the intranasal vaccine induced significantly higher cross-neutralizing responses against the BA.5 sub-lineage of the Omicron variant. In addition to these humoral responses, we also detected higher mucosal (sIgA) antibodies at Day 42 following BBV154 compared with Covaxin administration. These results were further supported by statistically significant increases of IgA-secreting plasmablasts on Day 42, compared with Day 0 in the BBV154 group… In this study, the combined incidence rates of local and systemic adverse events after the first and second doses of BBV154 are strikingly lower than the rates reported for other SARS-CoV-2 vaccine platform candidates. However, other vaccine studies enrolled different populations and employed varying approaches to measure adverse events. Nonetheless, the intranasal route of administration was well tolerated in comparison with the injected Covaxin control vaccine, with fewer than 5% and 3% of vaccinees reporting local or systemic adverse events.” N = 3160.

Scientific Communication

“The Coronavirus Still Doesn’t Care About Your Feelings” [The Nation]. “[I]f there’s one thing we’ve learned, three and a half years into the current crisis, it’s that—contrary to what the movies taught us—pandemics don’t automatically spawn terror-stricken stampedes in the streets. Media and public health coverage have a strong hand in shaping public response and can—under the wrong circumstances—promote indifference, incaution, and even apathy. A very visible example of this was the sharp drop in the number of people masking after the CDC revised its guidelines in 2021, recommending that masking was not necessary for the vaccinated (from 90 percent in May to 53 percent in September). As that example suggests, emphasizing the message ‘don’t panic’ puts the cart before the horse unless tangible measures are being taken to prevent panic-worthy outcomes. And indeed, these repeated assurances against panic have arguably also preempted a more vigorous and urgent public health response—as well as perversely increasing public acceptance of the risks posed by coronavirus infection and the unchecked transmission of the virus. This ‘moral calm‘—a sort of manufactured consent—impedes risk mitigation by promoting the underestimation of a threat. Soothing public messaging during disasters can often lead to an increased death toll: Tragically, false reassurance contributed to mortality in both the attacks on the World Trade Center and the sinking of the Titanic.” • Worth reading in full. On “moral calm”–

“The Moral Calm Before the Storm: How a Theory of Moral Calms Explains the Covid-Related Increase in Parents’ Refusal of Vaccines for Children” (preprint) [socArXiv]. “To further explain these patterns, I offer a theory of ‘moral calm.’ Drawing on the theory of moral panic (Cohen 1972; Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994), I define moral calms as situations marked by a lack of widespread fear of some potentially harmful phenomenon. As pre-pandemic research has shown, anti-vaccine activists do not just try to persuade others that vaccines are dangerous; they also argue that vaccines are largely unnecessary, on the grounds that vaccine-preventable diseases pose minimal threat to young, ‘healthy’ people (Estep and Greenberg 2020; Prislin et al. 1998; Reich 2016b, 2016a, 2020a; Ten Kate, Koster, and Van der Waal 2021). Essentially, anti-vaccine activists attempt to promote not only a moral panic around vaccines but also a moral calm around vaccine-preventable diseases.” And not just Covid; measles and MMR generally. More: “Building on these findings, I will show that messages from public health experts in the early stages of the pandemic inadvertently helped create a ‘moral calm’ around children and Covid-19. These messages, which portrayed children, and particularly white, ‘healthy” children as being at low risk of contracting, transmitting, and getting seriously ill from the disease….” Because “we” didn’t want school closures? More: “… led many mothers to perceive the vaccine as unnecessary for their children, even if they had never previously refused vaccines. Perceiving the vaccine as unnecessary opened the door for mothers to engage with misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines, which then led mothers to see the vaccine as potentially more harmful to their children than the disease itself. Ultimately, I conclude that the coupling of a moral calm around children and Covid and a moral panic around Covid vaccines created a perfect storm of rhetoric and sentiments, leading a substantial number of parents to decide that they would, at least initially, refuse to vaccinate their children against Covid-19.” • I think the moral calm idea is interesting. I’m not sure mRNA vaccines is where I’d try the idea out.

“Something Awful”

Lambert here: I’m getting the feeling that the “Something Awful” might be a sawtooth pattern — variant after variant — that averages out to a permanently high plateau. Lots of exceptionally nasty sequelae, most likely deriving from immune dysregulation (says this layperson). To which we might add brain damage, including personality changes therefrom.

* * *

“Neurologic Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Transmitted among Dogs” [Emerging Infections Diseases, CDC]. From the Abstract: “We observed substantial brain pathology in SARS-CoV-2–infected dogs, particularly involving blood–brain barrier damage resembling small vessel disease, including changes in tight junction proteins, reduced laminin levels, and decreased pericyte coverage. Furthermore, we detected phosphorylated tau, a marker of neurodegenerative disease, indicating a potential link between SARS-CoV-2–associated small vessel disease and neurodegeneration. Our findings of degenerative changes in the dog brain during SARS-CoV-2 infection emphasize the potential for transmission to other hosts and induction of similar signs and symptoms. The dynamic brain changes in dogs highlight that even asymptomatic individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 may develop neuropathologic changes in the brain.” • On the bright side, maybe people who don’t care about infecting their children will care about infecting their dogs.

Elite Maleficence

BoJo to the Hague Tribunal:

Extroverts are gonna kill us all:

One wonders, as neurological damage becomes more and more evident, whether menus will be gradually simplified, and of course the dishes, too (as taste goes?).

* * *

Lambert here: No point watching the tape; the CDC snarled it, by (mixed metaphor) decapitating the national source of wastewater data, without which we have no current case data at all (although we can always check our local sewage plant). Mandy, good job!

Case Data

NEVER TO BE UPDATED From BioBot wastewater data, October 2:

Lambert here: Leveling out to a high plateau wasn’t on my Bingo card! Perhaps FL.1.5.1, high in the Northeast, has something going for it that other variants don’t have?

Regional data:

Interestingly, the upswing begins before July 4, which neither accelerates nor retards it.

• “CDC ends Biobot Analytics contract for wastewater surveillance of COVID pandemic” [WSWS]. “As of September 27, 2023, one of the few reliable sources of information on the real state of the COVID pandemic in the US was halted….. Instead, the CDC awarded the $38 million contract for up-to-five years to Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences) on September 26, 2023. However, a glance into Verily’s COVID dashboard, WastewaterSCAN, offers little in terms of comprehensible data in regional or national terms. It simply states, ‘Medium: Downward trend and medium concentration in the last 21 days.’… It appears that the disruption in wastewater data is another deliberate attempt by the CDC to further dismantle any semblance of organized real-time data on the state of the pandemic. Such shifts in contracts usually take place over a span of time to assure a seamless transition on the data being presented…. Biobot Analytics was alone in tracking the entire course of the summer wave, enabling an appreciative public to take what self-protective measures they could and providing vital information to medical science and public health efforts. The hostility of the CDC and its political and corporate masters to this effort—they evidently regarded data collection on COVID as more dangerous than the lethal disease itself—no doubt accounts for the decision to award the wastewater data monitoring contract to a different company.” • After CDC’s criminal “green map,” I can believe anything of them. However, although eliminating real-time data is bad, handing wastewater data over to one of Google’s tentacles is worse. Again, Google is known to (a) monetize data, and (b) game public-facing data (1) for profit, and (2) when the Censorship Industrial Complex tells them to (say, to “prevent panic”). This is very bad. Google is simply bad for data hygiene, and they shouldn’t be let near public health data.

Variants

NOT UPDATED From CDC, October 14:

Lambert here: September 30 is tomorrow, but never mind that. Top of the leaderboard: EG.5 (“Eris“), with HV.1 a strong second, and XBB.1.1.16.6 and FL.1.15.1 trailing. No BA.2.86. Still a Bouillabaisse…

From CDC, September 16:

Lambert here: I sure hope the volunteers doing Pangolin, on which this chart depends, don’t all move on the green fields and pastures new (or have their access to facilities cut by administrators of ill intent).

CDC: “As of May 11, genomic surveillance data will be reported biweekly, based on the availability of positive test specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring every two weeks. 2. occurring twice a week; semiweekly.” Looks like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to worry about. Time will tell.

Covid Emergency Room Visits

NOT UPDATED From CDC NCIRD Surveillance, October 7:

Drop coinciding with wastewater drop.

NOTE “Charts and data provided by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the past year, using a rolling 52-week period.” So not the entire pandemic, FFS (the implicit message here being that Covid is “just like the flu,” which is why the seasonal “rolling 52-week period” is appropriate for bothMR SUBLIMINAL I hate these people so much. Notice also that this chart shows, at least for its time period, that Covid is not seasonal, even though CDC is trying to get us to believe that it is, presumably so they can piggyback on the existing institutional apparatus for injections.

Hospitalization

Bellwether New York City, data as of October 16:

Still decreasing. (New York State is now falling, too.) I hate this metric because the lag makes it deceptive. NOTE I wonder why they they lightened up the shade of grey (MANAGER: “That dark grey is depressing!”).

Here’s a different CDC visualization on hospitalization, nationwide, not by state, but with a date, at least. September 30:

Lambert here: “Maps, charts, and data provided by CDC, updates weekly for the previous MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Department Visits, Test Positivity) and weekly the following Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”. So where the heck is the update, CDC?

Positivity

NOT UPDATED From Walgreens, October 9:

-1.0%. Still dropping, though less than before. (It would be interesting to survey this population generally; these are people who, despite a tsunami of official propaganda and enormous peer pressure, went and got tested anyhow.)

From Cleveland Clinic, October 7:

Lambert here: I know this is just Ohio, but the Cleveland Clinic is good*, and we’re starved for data, so…. NOTE * Even if hospital infection control is trying to kill patients by eliminating universal masking with N95s.

From CDC, traveler’s data, September 25:

Back up again, albeit in the rear view mirror. And here are the variants for travelers:

BA.2.86 shrinks. Flash in the pan?

Deaths

NOT UPDATED Iowa COVID-19 Tracker, September 27:

Lambert here: The WHO data is worthless, so I replaced it with the Iowa Covid Data Tracker. Their method: “These data have been sourced, via the API from the CDC: https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Conditions-Contributing-to-COVID-19-Deaths-by-Stat/hk9y-quqm. This visualization updates on Wednesday evenings. Data are provisional and are adjusted weekly by the CDC.” I can’t seem to get a pop-up that shows a total of the three causes (top right). Readers?

Total: 1,178,851 – 1,178,704 = 147 (147 * 365 = 53,655 deaths per year, 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). 

Excess Deaths

NOT UPDATED The Economist, October 13:

Lambert here: Based on a machine-learning model.

Stats Watch

Manufacturing: “United States NY Empire State Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The NY Empire State Manufacturing Index fell to -4.6 in October 2023 from 1.9 in September, compared to forecasts of -7, and showing that business activity in the New York state edged lower.”

* * *

Tech: “I wrote the book on user-friendly design. What I see today horrifies me” [Don Norman, Fast Company]. “Despite our increasing numbers the world seems to be designed against the elderly. Everyday household goods require knives and pliers to open. Containers with screw tops require more strength than my wife or I can muster. (We solve this by using a plumber’s wrench to turn the caps.) Companies insist on printing critical instructions in tiny fonts with very low contrast. Labels cannot be read without flashlights and magnifying lenses. And when companies do design things specifically for the elderly, they tend to be ugly devices that shout out to the world ‘I’m old and can’t function!’ We can do better.” • And that’s before we get to cellphones. Commentary:

The Economy: “If the Economy Is So Strong, Why Are Consumer Stocks Tanking?” [Wall Street Journal]. “Although the U.S. economy generally appears to be humming along, companies across the retail spectrum have suggested consumers are starting to exercise more caution with their purchases. The latest fall in the shares also coincides with a rapid rise in Treasury yields, which reduces the appeal of the staples stocks in particular because they are often seen as dividend plays…. Dollar General is among the companies that have said its customers are buying fewer discretionary items while opting to pick up food and other essentials, leaving the company with an inventory of unsold goods.”

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 36 Fear (previous close: 28 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 30 (Extreme Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Oct 16 at 1:38:21 PM ET.

Rapture Index: Closes unchanged [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 186. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) NOTE on #42 Plagues: “The coronavirus pandemic has maxed out this category.” More honest than most! • Israel/Palestine blows up, and the Rapture isn’t closer?!

Games

“This New Hand-Painted Video Game Takes Place Inside Claude Monet’s Eyeball” [Smithsonian]. “Australian designer and developer Pat Naoum spent seven years creating the game, which takes players on a colorful, 12-level journey through Monet’s iris, per Artnet’s Min Chen. To progress in the game, players must solve puzzles while running along green vines and through scenes depicted in some of Monet’s paintings. In doing so, they also help Monet complete his works. Naoum hand-painted the entire game, a process that took over 2,000 hours. He then learned to code so he could digitize his artwork and make it interactive—all while holding down a day job as a web designer.” • Neat!

The Gallery

Really speaks to the railfan in me:

Class Warfare

“Cultivating community-based participatory research (CBPR) to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic: an illustrative example of partnership and topic prioritization in the food services industry” [BMC Public Health]. “Key findings were that food service workers (1) were provided workplace COVID-19 droplet-based protections that were insufficient against a highly-infectious airborne illness, (2) had to make difficult decisions about health and safety with limited definitive public health guidance and structural supports, (3) faced considerable stressors and mental health concerns, especially depression, anxiety, and substance use, with limited counseling support, (4) continue to experience long-term health, mental health, and financial impacts, and (5) want more support to prevent in-home COVID-19 transmission and gain more support around health, mental health, and financial well-being in the food service industry.”

“Exploring Gender Bias in Six Key Domains of Academic Science: An Adversarial Collaboration” [Exploring Gender Bias in Six Key Domains of Academic Science: An Adversarial Collaboration]. From the Abstract: “Contrary to the omnipresent claims of sexism in these domains appearing in top journals and the media, our findings show that tenure-track women are at parity with tenure-track men in three domains (grant funding, journal acceptances, and recommendation letters) and are advantaged over men in a fourth domain (hiring). For teaching ratings and salaries, we found evidence of bias against women; although gender gaps in salary were much smaller than often claimed, they were nevertheless concerning. Even in the four domains in which we failed to find evidence of sexism disadvantaging women, we nevertheless acknowledge that broad societal structural factors may still impede women’s advancement in academic science. Given the substantial resources directed toward reducing gender bias in academic science, it is imperative to develop a clear understanding of when and where such efforts are justified and of how resources can best be directed to mitigate sexism when and where it exists.”

News of the Wired

“Forget privacy: you’re terrible at targeting anyway” [OpenWarr]. “The state of personalized recommendations is surprisingly terrible. At this point, the top recommendation is always a clickbait rage-creating article about movie stars or whatever Trump did or didn’t do in the last 6 hours. Or if not an article, then a video or documentary. That’s not what I want to read or to watch, but I sometimes get sucked in anyway, and then it’s recommendation apocalypse time, because the algorithm now thinks I like reading about Trump, and now everything is Trump. Never give positive feedback to an AI.” • Words to live by! (Also, written in 2019. If anything, more true today.)

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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 Angie Neer:

Angie Neer writes: “Fireweed and evergreens, near Mount Rainier, WA.”

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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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104 comments

  1. Carolinian

    Re Trump and humor–on one of their talks Walter Kirn quoted Bill Maher’s assertion that Colbert and the other late nights do pandering rather jokes. It’s all “take my wife Trump, please!” Have the Dems become too cozy and self satisfied to be genuinely funny? Humor is for the outsiders, the dwarves, the court jesters, the–from one of humor’s best–“I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.” So un-woke, that Groucho.

    Trump can be funny.

    1. Feral Finster

      I have long maintained that liberals have become smug moralizing scolds so priggish and humorless that they make The Church Lady look like G.G. Allin and Cotton Mather look like Lenny Bruce by comparison.

      Meanwhile, the subversives, the pranksters, the Tellers Of Forbidden Truths and Roasters Of Sacred Cows are largely found on the alt-right, and to a lesser extent, the Dirtbag Left.

      This is not because of any inherent censoriousness on the Left, nor is it because of any innate puckishness on the Right, but is an artifact of their respective relationships to power.

    2. lyman alpha blob

      I remember conservative attempts at political humor during Jon Stewart’s heyday. There was one on Fox that was just mean spirited and not at all funny. Stewart made fun of politicians (often on both sides) for the most part, while the conservatives tried to make fun of liberal voters in general. They punched down and it was rather painful to watch the lame attempts to draw a guffaw.

      Now the dynamic has switched and the late night comedians are making fun of conservatives, mocking regular people for not getting vaccinated, etc., while heaping praise on the Faucis of the world. I haven’t watched the Daily Show for years – never found Trevor Noah humorous at all. Colbert lost me almost as soon as he switched from Comedy Central and became a complete shill. But I’m pleasantly surprised that the Babylon Bee is actually funny. Whowouldathunkit?

    3. Reply

      Groucho overstayed his welcome, and attempted to hold onto attention long past his just go away already date. Watch him on roasts or late night shows to see that sad spectacle. A day at the races, a night at the morgue.

  2. ChrisFromGA

    Re: Two front wars & imperial overreach

    Seems like a Freudian slip there, Joe: “international defense?”

    I sure don’t remember that one in studying the constitution, declaration of independence, or bill of rights.

    In fact, I remember learning about George Washington’s admonition against foreign alliances.

    Sounds like an admission of his mentality that we’re the world police, just like Shrub and Clinton thought.

    1. Screwball

      It’s “Carlinish” IMO. You change the words so they don’t bite as much. One of my warmongering unhinged ex-military PMC friends likes to call it “collective security” which means he really has the Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Bill Kristol, PNAC outlook of world police and bomb any and everything that moves. Collective security my a$$.

      ****
      In other news, I can’t find it now, but Twitter sources are reporting Jim Jordon potentially has enough votes to get speaker. According to the reports, he traded votes for war funding for both Israel and Ukraine. Cha-ching!

      These people are despicable, if true. If not, they still are.

      1. Pat

        Is it too much for my little popcorn eating heart to hope he calls for a vote only to find out that the trades he agreed to lost him as many or more votes than he gained? I realize that enjoying watching Republicans being more loyal to their supposed positions then Democrats is perverse but I fully admit I do.

        1. ChrisFromGA

          I have a similar hope … horsetrading like that is what got Zombie-Kev relegated to the back bench. I would not be surprised if the Boebert/MTG wing calls BS on that alleged backroom deal and makes trouble …

      2. Feral Finster

        “According to the reports, he traded votes for war funding for both Israel and Ukraine. Cha-ching!”

        Of course he did. One thing that antiwar movements or anyone not in power fails to recognize is the persistence of the Empire. When they lose an election, for example, they don’t just throw their proverbial hands up in the air and say “Oh well, I guess we just lost fair and square!”

        Rather, they go back to doing what they do best, whisper campaigns, horse-trading, secret deals hatched in dark corners. They retreat to their lairs in think tanks or lobbying shops. They call in favors, or hold out their support in exchange for favors. When necessary, they cheat.

        And they keep on getting what they want, even if it sometimes takes a little while longer.

    2. Glen

      Wait till they say we’re going to go to war with China.

      We import a billion dollars a year worth of goods from China.
      The last at home CV tests we got from our government are “Made in China”.
      China has about $900 billion in Tbills.
      The American military has acknowledged that critical components of the F-35 only come from China.

      I try to gently tell my PMC friends that we lost any war with China at least a decade ago, and they look a little confused.

      2. Lambert Strether Post author

        > The American military has acknowledged that critical components of the F-35 only come from China.

        I think that’s a little over-stated, but not by much. Use of Chinese Material in F-35 Highlights Pentagon’s Complexity Problem POGO. First, the supply chain is so complex we can’t really be certain what comes from China and what doesn’t (without an absurd level of effort). Second, a single chip with the right malware could compromise an aircraft, and from there the entire fleet (since the F-35 is heavily networked, indeed marketed as such).

    3. Acacia

      An admission, yeah…

      Trey Parker and Matt Stone pretty much burned this mentality to the ground in Team America: World Police but it seems the Bidenistas didn’t get the memo.

      Weird how most of the USian political class seems to have no sense of humor or irony (except Trump lol and probably because he’s an outsider).

      No wonder the pols as reptilian Xist meme has been so enduring.

      1. caucus99percenter

        Having scored a hit with The Book of Mormon, Trey Parker and Matt Stone could do the world a big favor and show real courage if their next couple of musicals would demystify the Koran and the Babylonian Talmud next.

        1. otis rasmussen

          Haven’t they already done the Koran? I haven’t watched in years, but in the past they had no problem doing crude anti-Muslim/anti-Arab vignettes that paint a narrow brush on these varied societies and cultures, so as to make them easier to enter militarily and carve up.

          But I seriously doubt they will ever do anything on the Talmud and how it relates to Zionism and modern Israeli political and military machinations.

          They stick to the familiar Cartman Jewish jokes that ultimately help the Zionist propaganda machine.

          1. Lambert Strether Post author

            > Disney is now all in on sports gambling

            Does make you wonder if Disney will add casinos to its theme parks. Princess Elsa blessing the gamblers with her wand — or perhaps only the winners?

  3. Tom Stone

    We can’t afford to house the homeless, feed the hungry or provide healthcare for the needy, but we can afford a two front War “No Problem”.
    Childhood poverty has doubled in the USA since Biden took office, that says all that needs to be said.

    1. Pat

      The list continues beyond that… emergency funding and services, infrastructure repair, strengthening our grid, education – both primary and upper education, meeting the promises to our military post service, or even for the rank and file things like pay and equipment, IRS, or fully independent funding of the FDA and CDC, rural hospitals and broadband… and that’s just off the top of my head.
      I’m sure that the NC community can add many more items that are being neglected to fund one war that should have never been started and another that we have enabled for decades both of which have no immediate danger to the US and would be better if we weren’t so gung ho on funding the war part and not the peace part.

    4. cgregory

      Apparently childhood poverty doubled as a result of the expiration of the public relief bill passed when the economy started tanking during the first round of Covid. The bill reduced poverty rates dramatically, but as the House did not renew it, poverty once again surged. How much of that can be laid at Biden’s feet?

      2. marym

        During the Biden administration the American Rescue Plan passed by the 117th Congress in 2021 expanded child tax credit for one year. That same Congress didn’t renew it for 2022. In a 50/50 Senate Manchin was the rotating villain.

  4. nippersdad

    I am actually a little surprised that Gottheimer has not been more active in the presidential sweepstakes. He was getting so much press last year, screwing over the BBB, that I thought he would be one of the first out of the gate. He may just be a little smarter/better able to read the tea leaves than Phillips and is awaiting a more propitious window for showcasing his ambitions.

    But he needs to move soon, as it looks like we are about to have a wave election that might leave him on the sidelines until he reaches his overripe prime in his seventies. It has been well over a generation now, and Reagan Democrats are just about out of fashion.

    1. NotTimothyGeithner

      Remember Harold Ford jr? I kind of think Buttigieg, ORourke, and Kamala demonstrated the hunger for Bill Clinton 3.0. It doesn’t exist. Nostalgia and branding work for a time, but could you imagine “I can feel your pain” Clinton today?

      Team Blue might be whispering Newsom, but he’s loathsome and looks like a skinny Patrick Bateman. I don’t think he goes on.

      1. nippersdad

        Harold Ford Jr.! They work so hard to boost these people into the public eye, but they are all so inorganic. One feels like they just breed them in wine caves somewhere. I haven’t heard anything about the Buttigieg prodigy for a while now, either. He must have fallen headfirst into the diaper pail and can’t get out. Someone needs to tell him that you need to teach the help muffled Danglish before they can understand it. He is just that fake. And Newsom even looks greasy.

        The sooner they get some of those hardworking invisible sellouts from the back bench the better for them electorally. They are all just so scuzzy that the only chance they have is to get someone that no one has ever heard of and slip them in before anyone notices.

      2. Lefty Godot

        The fact that they could run a candidate (Beto) in Texas who was promising “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15″… How much more evidence do you need that the party is completely out of touch with the voters. Pushing someone in the looks and style of Robert Redford–in The Candidate–(but with DEI characteristics) seems to to the formula they want to return to. But there’s no awareness of even what the issues are that the large majority of voters care about. Taking your AR-15s away as a platform would lose you Vermont, never mind Texas.

        I am expecting (but not looking forward to) a big Republican landslide in 2024, including the presidency.

        1. The Rev Kev

          Alex Christoforou was saying that these anchors were all in on attacking Russia since the start of the war but when Israel came up, it did not save them getting the chop.

    3. Jeremy Grimm

      The link nippersmom references points to a 17 min. speed presenting the Palestinian side to the ongoing ‘war’ in Gaza. I strongly dislike links without more context provided.

      As for the link referenced … I am so deeply sitting in the choir I do not need any balance to the Palestinian viewpoint. I only wonder that things have remained so quiet in Israel as they have. However, I believe the Palestinian efforts should target not people but infrastructure and info-structure to achieve greater impact and effect.

    1. flora

      Fun with dyslexia: I misread your comment as “how Bigfoot got eaten by sharks.”

      Bigfoot got eaten by sharks!? What?! / ha

  7. Jason Boxman

    On the bright side, maybe people who don’t care about infection their children will care about infecting their dogs.

    If COVID killed dogs at a high rate, I have no doubt this country would shutdown overnight. I think people generally care more about their pets than their neighbors, children, or countrymen.

    Global Pet Industry To Grow To $500 Billion By 2030, Bloomberg Intelligence Report Finds

    New York, March 24, 2023 — The pet industry is poised to swell from $320 billion today to almost $500 billion by 2030, according to a new report from Bloomberg Intelligence (BI). The report finds that this growth is boosted by a growing pet population worldwide, as well as the premiumization of food and services resulting from the continued humanization of animal companions.

    The analysis finds that the US is positioned to continue to remain the largest pet market, with sales approaching $200 billion by the end of the decade.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/company/press/global-pet-industry-to-grow-to-500-billion-by-2030-bloomberg-intelligence-finds/

    1. Acacia

      “people generally care more about their pets than their neighbors, children, or countrymen.” And: “the US is positioned to continue to remain the largest pet market”

      What does this tell us about our society?

    2. Tom Doak

      I think Biden would put down Commander on the front lawn of the White House on national TV if it came to keeping America “open for business”.

    3. aletheia33

      locally i’ve heard that the COVID-19 surge in dog adoptions is now reversing:
      as the adopters are trying to resume their “normal” lives, returns to the humane society are significantly increasing.
      i’m not going to criticize, though it’s heartbreaking.

      it can well be mothers working full time outside the home while caring for all the home’s inhabitants who reach the limit of sanity doing it all–and with their children getting sick all the time, as they apparently now are? . . . the decision to give up a pet can be made out of desperation.

      yes they should have known better than to adopt that dog. i’m not defending it. but it does not surprise me that suddenly everyone needed a dog, perhaps for many in an acknowledged need for help to keep their family together, experiencing, i imagine, in many cases an unconscious terror in the new situation that is so unexpected and so difficult. relatively comfortably off americans are not at all prepared for any changes as drastic as this pandemic has been. dogs can provide all sorts of emotional help and can facilitate bonding, it’s what they naturally do.

      now i wonder if the urge to “return” to “normal”, as if that will ever be possible, might be in the same way driving some of these same people with the same kind of unacknowledged terror, perhaps to the point of even feeling a nagging need to remove the adoptee whose presence is reminding them too continuously that it’s possible that things have changed and the life “before” is over. it can become urgent not to see reality. the drive to keep everything “ordered” and “functioning”–the morning commute, the routine, the american obsession with getting things done (as if we even have a choice any more, there is less and less “free” time)–is a classic unconscious “fix”(not) for overwhelming anxiety and fear. a dog will bring out the emotion in you at inconvenient times. so can children, i’m sure, though i’m only experienced with dogs and not children.

      . . . if your child has clearly acquired symptoms of a mysterious disabling condition–and the doctor can come up with no remedy or even diagnosis–i’ve witnessed the level of denial and mindless coping with terror that this can push a parent into. the intense need for it not to be what it is–especially if apparently no one can truly “say” what it is–can be powerful enough to make someone grab on and cling to the delusion that it simply is not what it is.

      just some speculations.

  8. steppenwolf fetchit

    . . . ” Without the restaurant, am I even a person? Without the restaurant, would I not starve and die? ” . . .

    Sounds like ” the restaurant” could be somebody’s Darwin Filter.

  9. LawnDart

    Lifted this morning from Marginal Revolution, this one is too good not to share.

    Re; Class Warfare:

    Servants seem out of touch. Enter the billionaire’s battalion of experts.

    At the $100 million homes of these masters of the universe, vast teams of niche connoisseurs make sure that the right furnishings are in the lounge, the right cars are in the garage, the right toys are on the yacht, the right wines are in the cellar and the right works of art are on the walls — even if the owners of those Veblen goods aren’t always sure what it is exactly that they are buying.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/of-interest/2023/10/12/wealthy-experts-self-improvement/

  10. Jason Boxman

    just celebrated my laptop’s 10th birthday

    This is because every new software development ever done happens on a software engineer’s brand new company-provided 3k Macbook Pro with max RAM and CPU. Of course it runs like garbage on everything that is older than 3 years. I still have a MBP 2015, which was quite speedy back in 2018. Today, doing the same things — browsing the web, email, ect. — it’s noticeably slower. Why? More garbage stuffed into web pages. More JavaScript running. Larger data payloads to uncompress and run. Worse experience.

    There ought to be a federal law that all software is developed and tested on hardware that is 3-5 years old. My laptop ought to do the same things, email, browsing the web, usefully for another 10 years. Period.

    What a joke.

    It’s lazy software engineering craft for it to be otherwise.

    1. ChrisFromGA

      Wish there was an upvote feature in NC for posts like yours. As an ex-programmer who had to struggle with malloc(), free(), and other black arts, I can’t agree more! Modern web development seems like a bloated monstrosity. Do they even teach memory management in schools anymore?

      1. Acacia

        Malloc() and free()…? Garbage collection, my man.

        That said, my impression is that present-day bloatware isn’t due to poor memory management as much as the way desktop apps are built nowadays.

        Consider the following: many people have come to expect cross-platform apps (it should work on Windows, macOS, and maybe some Linux), but meanwhile there is no single shared framework for building these apps. This means dev teams hiring more engineers, with some for each supported platform, and meanwhile the pointy-haired managers are busy culling them.

        Enter cross-platform frameworks like Electron and Proton Native.

        How do they work? Well, instead of coding an app that uses the native desktop GUI (and only works on one platform), the devs write a web app, i.e., using JavaScript, and then wrap it up with the rendering engine from a browser (that’s inside an Electron app too, it seems). Out comes a desktop app. Instead of the native desktop app, though, you get something like a web app masquerading as a desktop app.

        But cross-platform dev problem solved!

        Except… the app is kinda slow and each one will have its own built-in browser. Ditto for things like SQLite, where each app that uses it may have its own embedded copy. I count over 20 distinct copies of that library alone on my machine. Sigh.

    2. Hepativore

      There is also the fact that each subsequent rollout of the Windows OS since Windows Vista has been getting progressively worse, such as being loaded with Microsoft’s telemetry, spyware, adware, and malware baked in and the OS interfaces becoming more unwieldy and not user-friendly.

      With the up and coming release of Windows 12 quickly after Windows 11, there are even rumors that Microsoft is going to start making Windows subscription-based as it has been talking about “OS as a service” for awhile now.

      Microsoft has also been talking to PC hardware makers like Intel to look into making its hardware incompatible with non-Windows operating systems like Linux. Slowly but surely, Microsoft has been moving to lock down people’s PCs into becoming “walled gardens” just like Apple has done with their hardware.

      I myself am wondering what to do in the future when Windows 10 is no longer supported in 2024, and I need a new computer soon. Linux cannot run the Adobe suite even with WINE, and there are Adobe programs I need with some of the stuff I need to do on my computer. I am also looking into debloated/spyware removed versions of Windows 11 such as Ghost Spectre Windows 11 Superlite, and hopefully there will be a version for Windows 12.

      I do not have much hope that these anti-consumer practices of Apple and Microsoft are going to be curbed anytime soon. Microsoft probably figures that the corporate sector which composes the bulk of its userbase will not put up much resistance, and as for the backlash that you might see among home users, Microsoft probably will not care as it figures that many of them have nowhere else to go as the average person does not have the time or interest to mess around with things like Linux. Most people will just grumble and reflexively shell out the requisite money per month it will take to keep their computer from shutting itself down much as they might otherwise hate being required to do so.

      1. Jason Boxman

        The spyware loaded into recent versions of Windows is a sight to behold, without a doubt. I’ve hated Windows always, and it’s been awful since Windows 7 was sunset, so I can’t even tolerate running recent versions of it anymore. So I’m stuck with MacOS, which works well enough, at least.

      2. flora

        Oh boy. I could write a long, article length comment on the issues you raise. MS has been trying to make its Windows operating system (OS) and applications like Word-Office Suite a subscription-only service for 20 years. That is finally becoming a reality for the newest version. (You will own nothing and be happy.) Some of their less widely used applications are already subscription only. You are right that the MS corporate (and education) sector base of users will accept the change and not put up much of a fuss.

        For home users who aren’t ready to or don’t want to make the jump for many reasons there are workarounds. This note isn’t a tease. There are workarounds, but listing them with the hardware versions/software versions compatibility issues would bore most readers to tears.

        1. flora

          adding re Linux:

          ‘Linux cannot run the Adobe suite even with WINE, and there are Adobe programs I need with some of the stuff I need to do on my computer.”

          Depending on your version of Linux, see if it will run a virtual system like Oracle’s VM Virtualbox that will host your prefered Windows OS. VM Virtualbox is a virtual machine application you install your Linux machine, and then inside it install your prefered version of Windows to run the apps that work in that version of Windows. You must have the installation disks and software key for that version of Windows. It’s like setting up a new Windows machine inside the Virtualboz application itself. The only downside might be hardware memory management, depending on your Adobe app memory requirements. Might run slower than you expect.

          https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VirtualBox

      3. some guy

        I am one of those average people who will not have the time or interest to mess around with things like Linux.

        Is there a business opportunity for a company which can make all- computer-compatible programs and stuff which are Linux “clean” and microsoft-easy to use without having to be a coder or a computer hobbyist of some kind? If there is, I hope such a company arises.

      4. JBird4049

        >>>Slowly but surely, Microsoft has been moving to lock down people’s PCs into becoming “walled gardens” just like Apple has done with their hardware.

        I have to use something call Canvas to access my college classes, which only uses Microsoft programs, meaning even though I use an iMac, I must use Word, and only Word, for my homework.

  11. flora

    re:
    The United States can “certainly” afford wars on two fronts, the country’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has told Sky News 👇 https://t.co/OxCgJn48TH

    — Sky News (@SkyNews) October 16, 2023

    For some definition of “afford.”

    —

    ‘For some definition of “afford.” ‘

    Did Yellen note the latest US 30-Year Treasuries auction?

    from Barron’s:

    30-Year Treasuries Had an Ugly Auction. What’s Behind the Weak Demand.

    https://www.barrons.com/articles/treasuries-weakness-demand-a2bec374

    Seems starting wars or creating political chaos no longer has the effect of making US Treasuries a flight to safe haven for the world’s money. But sure, start a third war. / my 2 cents.

    1. Louis Fyne

      DC can afford a new war…

      the question is can the bottom 85%? (via high petrol prices, inflation-induced, demand-crushing credit crunch, etc)

      1. JBird4049

        >>>the question is can the bottom 85%?

        Let’s not be silly here. We don’t matter to the Lords of the Universe and their personal servants; of course, they can afford another war.

        1. Feral Finster

          Nobody of influence and authority cares.

          Why, of course, the people don’t want war,” Goering shrugged. “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”

          “There is one difference,” I pointed out. “In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.”

          “Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

    2. The Rev Kev

      Yellen is actually a Neocon so she is making the classic Neocon mistake. She – and they – think that if you make the printers go brrr, then all that money will translate into available equipment and trained expertise. The real world does not work that way and certainly not industrial production. We see the result that no matter how much money the US treasury can print, that equipment for the Ukraine is running dry and ammo the same. And throwing money at a problem does not mean that you get trained people either. For that you need years to grow them and they are not something that you can take off a shelf. As Alexander Christoforou put it, for neocons there are always infinite resources and Yellen is the same.

      1. flora

        Ha. Yes, you can make the the printers go brrr, and then you can also weaponize the dollar, and suddenly and mysteriously that does not translate into infinite available resources. Do ya suppose the neocons missed a connection or three in their thinking? / ;)

      2. eg

        They think in spreadsheet land, but the world is real resource land and their map does not match the territory.

      3. digi_owl

        Not unique to neocons, sadly. I fear that this kind of magical thinking infects all urban PMC going back generations, as they grew up being able to wave their credit cards at anything they desired.

        They are not educated in logistics or production, bar the stylized nail factory that is the BA degree.

        Their training is invariably law and political theory, with maybe a sprinkling of humanities depending on how “left” they lean.

  12. pjay

    “Spurious Spy Now Runs RFK, Jr. Campaign” [Spy Talk]

    I admit that replacing Denis Kucinich with “a former employee of the CIA” is quite the switcheroo. This does not ease my concerns about some of Kennedy’s policy positions, most particularly on Israel (which I am guessing had something to do with the Kucinich exit). And I have no idea how much his daughter-in-law has “grossly exaggerated” her CIA exploits. But that said, be assured that this SpyTalk piece is just another element in the concerted liberal smear campaign against him. The Kennedy family members who have turned against RFK Jr. are depicted as pillars of reason and virtue; those who continue to support him are just depicted as nuts. Of course Kucinich was a “nut.” But now he is replaced by someone who is not only a nut, but CIA, therefore betraying Kennedy’s base!

    SpyTalk is one of those publications where former intelligence people and their journalist friends dish out “insider” information to readers who want to know what’s *really* going on behind the scenes. Like all such sites, they have a political agenda. They are unabashedly in the liberal/Democrat camp. Just go to their website and read some of their past articles, where they push Putin and Trump derangement and anti-Russian hysteria, and shower praise on the recently deceased Diane Feinstein for her “heroic” stand against torture. Another function of SpyTalk is to offer limited hangouts while ridiculing any “conspiracy theory” that goes beyond the accepted boundaries. In doing so, their articles can sometimes offer useful information within the limits of acceptable discussion while obfuscating larger issues.

    I’m afraid some of RFK Jr.’s policy positions lie beyond the accepted boundaries. SpyTalk will tell inquiring minds what the real live Spooks think, starting with his fake CIA campaign manager.

  13. nippersdad

    This seems well timed:

    “Trump’s lawyers filed suit in Britain against Orbis Business Intelligence, the company founded by Christopher Steele, a former MI6 agent who published a 35-page dossier including uncorroborated claims that Trump’s campaign and Russian agents conspired to influence the 2016 U.S. election, according to The Associated Press.”

    I know nothing about how long British courts could drag something like this out, but if they go into the whole thing it won’t look good for the CIA/DOJ/Democrats/Hillary campaign who relied on RussiaGate for the past seven years in trying to take down Trump.

    https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4258189-trump-sues-steele-dossier/

    1. Alex Cox

      Unfortunately the British state will likely assign a pliable m’lord to decide the case, no jury needed here.

      1. caucus99percenter

        True. Trump has about the same chance at getting a fair shake from the U.K. “justice” system as, say, Julian Assange.

  14. mrsyk

    “Exploring Gender Bias in Six Key Domains of Academic Science: An Adversarial Collaboration”
    It’s good to see some evenness in outcomes between genders, but is that the true measure of discrimination? For instance, the paper doesn’t measure the amount of labor used to achieve the outcome. Unfair workloads is a common complaint in this arena.

  15. XXYY

    The Democrats seem constiutionally incapable of ever implementing an “Every County, Every Vote”-style campaign. All the way back to Obama strangling Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy.

    The last thing the Democrats, or any politicians, want is a powerful political organization that is under the control of the actual population. They want whatever power there is to be concentrated in hands that they control. It was quite noteworthy that OFA was shuttled aside then quietly strangled almost immediately by the party of Barack Obama. One would have thought the organization was a gift from God to a new president who was trying to get his feet under him in Washington.

    1. nippersdad

      I agree. Obama visibly sold out before his first inauguration. OFA would have been a gift from God for someone who actually wanted what he was selling to get into office, but it would have been a gun to his head the moment he brought in the Wall Street guys. He had to deep six them as fast as he possibly could; they were far too online and influential for his comfort as we saw with Occupy.

      1. caucus99percenter

        Yep. Obama told his grassroots supporters to “Hold my feet to the fire” — then he put out the fire.

      2. Acacia

        Hmm… kinda like the grassroots groups that Bernie used for his bid for office, but then walked away from?

      4. The Rev Kev

        And then there was Obama’s Army. As soon as he got into office he had them absorbed into the Democrats official machinery and it all went away for him.

  16. Wukchumni

    Over the past decade, Tulare County has seen an increase in demand for short-term rentals. A short-term rental (STR) is the rental of a dwelling or a portion thereof, by the owner to another person or group of persons for occupancy, lodging or sleeping purposes for a period of less than thirty (30) consecutive calendar days. STRs have become increasingly popular as homeowners search for additional sources of income. With the proliferation of platforms such as Airbnb and VRBO it has become easy for homeowners to connect with people looking for STRs. The ever-increasing popularity of STRs has come with unanticipated and unwanted problems, particularly for the Three Rivers community.

    There are 294 STRs located within the Three Rivers Urban Boundary. This accounts for over 60% of all STRs in unincorporated Tulare County. Negative impacts caused by some short-term rental visitors include excessive noise, after-hours partying, trash/garbage, and parking
    conflicts to just name a few. Additionally, the STRs have a negative impact on the quantity of affordable housing in the community. There are reports of longtime residents being displaced against their will as homeowners convert dwellings into short term rental. Other negative impacts attributed to increase of STRs by the Three Rivers community include, but are not limited to the following:

    • Three Rivers’ only school has lost about thirty-five percent (35%) of its
    enrollment in the last 5 years and is now down to ninety-five (95) students.The school is the heart of the community.
    • Three Rivers’ only preschool has closed.
    • Three Rivers’ only drug store and pharmacy has closed.
    • Three Rivers’ only veterinary office has closed.
    • Three Rivers’ only dentist has closed.
    • Three Rivers’ only auto parts store has closed.
    • Three Rivers’ only one remaining mechanic and he’s only open Monday –Thursday until 2:00 p.m.
    • Three Rivers’ oldest church is discussing reorganizing due to lack of
    membership.
    • Sequoia National Park can’t fill positions because so many long-term rentals have been turned into STRs.

    https://3rtogether.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Draft-BOS-AI-STR.pdf
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    As far as I can tell, the STR’s here offer their owners the chance to make money on their garage mahals, but at what cost to the community?

    Bob & Betty Bitchin’ from Burbank and their lovely kids Truly & Trevor are here for a 3 day stay, but their progeny doesn’t go to our K-8 grade school now down to under 100 students (it was 220 when we moved here about 20 years ago) nor do they need to go to the dentist or drug store or other businesses that went toes up. They know nothing about black bears raiding trash cans, creating legions of trash fed bears livin’ la vida dolce, a nice grubstake compared to say eating grubs.

    The main reason tourists are here is to go up to Sequoia NP, but they are having a devil of a time finding anybody that will work in the National Park, as there aren’t any long term house rentals available here in Three Rivers.

    1. flora

      Gentrification by itinerant tourists ? Not good for the local economy, as you so well point out. Thanks.

  17. flora

    Thanks for the Real Clear Politics article on T. All I can say is that even dark humor, gallows humor, is better than either stark fear or blind rage, both of which paralyze the ability to think clearly or to even think at all. Inviting people to laugh, to take a breath, even in dark times is a good thing, even if I disagree with the guy on most issues.

    Never thought of T as a standup comic, but life is full of surprises. / ;)

  18. Mark Gisleson

    Seems like the news headlines are getting longer and longer as the “truth” becomes harder and harder to explain.

  19. steppenwolf fetchit

    A thought just occured to me about Obama assassinating the Dean ” 50 State” effort. We know that Obama is “spooked up” ( analogous to a mafia-adjacent person being referred to as ” mobbed up”). But what if Obama was / is an actual CI Agent? What if his actual covert mission was to penetrate the Democrats as a CIA mole and disable them just enough to make them ineffective for a socially beneficial standpoint, but still just survival-effective enough to stay on the field and in the way?

    Would that explain why so many people still take Obama seriously enough to visit him at Castle Obama in the Greater Beltway Area? Because they aren’t literally taking him seriously? Actually they are taking his hidden runners and controllers seriously?

    1. The Rev Kev

      That keeps on happening with trains and bridges. Are the trains the same weight that were in use when those bridges were first built?

    2. flora

      Weird. We’re supposed to be the unipolar center of the world and yet we can’t make our trains run safely over the rail tracks to deliver the freight.

      BNSF is the Burlington Northern Santa Fe train line.

      2. flora

        Anybody heard from Mayo Pete? Where is Mayo Pete, our Secretary of Transportation? Where’s Waldo? / oy

    3. Daryl

      Wow, extraordinary bad luck for the poor truck driver. Guess I’m going to be jamming it in the future when I go through an underpass under train tracks.

  21. ambrit

    Mini Zeitgeist Report from North American Deep South.
    Biked over to bank and then paid bills with cash taken from bank.
    Cashier behind narrowly open window at Electric Company bill payment office was wearing nitrile gloves, but no mask. When asked, the cashier replied that the gloves were to protect against Covid infected money.
    Cashier at proxy Gas Company bill payment site, (inside a local rent to own store,) replied that Covid is here to stay. Why worry?
    Cashier at City Water Department asked me why I was interested in the subject. Didn’t I know that the Pandemic was over?
    Feeling a bit Sybaritic, I stopped off at the local “Convenience Market/Gas Station” to get a favourite ice cream confection. I had obviously not bought one in a while. Ice cream sandwiches were retailing there for $2.50 USD plus tax per unit. When a Nutty Buddy becomes a ‘Luxury Item,’ you know that society is going straight to H— in a hurry.
    The lack of public outrage over Madame Speaker’s Gelato hoard becomes ever more inexplicable by the day.
    Corruption has become “normalized.”

  23. Bugs

    Hey Lambert, man I love you even more than my somewhat struggling 10 year old Macbook Air but hey, can we get an update or something on that “Democrats en Déshabillé” section?

    I’ll jam “London Calling” really loud if you do lol.

  24. The Rev Kev

    Words to remember-

    ‘Son, if you really want something in this life, you have to work for it. Now quiet! They’re about to announce the lottery numbers.’

    1. LifelongLib

      Well, if for some reason I wanted $1B, the lottery is the only way I would have a slightly greater than zero chance of getting it. Given that, I would spend the minimum amount to participate, at least if it was in the ball park of how much money I now spend on (say) beer.

    1. Reply

      Smallpox, tuberculosis and other joys are coming to a southern border near you. Some have already arrived according to various agencies. Plague-lite next?

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