2:00PM Water Cooler 11/14/2022 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Fowl Track of the Day

Black-billed Nightingale-Thrush, Sector La Esperanza, Cartago, Costa Rica

Politics

“However what’s authorities itself, however the biggest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“Right here’s meals for thought, had Ahab time to assume; however Ahab by no means thinks; he solely feels, feels, feels” –Herman Melville, Moby Dick

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

Biden Administration

“Perhaps the lunatics are proper about Ukraine: Defeating Putin isn’t value nuclear struggle” [Salon]. “As a kind of ‘woke leftists’ the Trumpists wish to complain about, I’m usually not within the behavior of agreeing with of us like Carlson or McCarthy on fairly actually something. Nevertheless, as an instructional whose analysis makes a speciality of human extinction — and who may be very involved that the prospect of nuclear struggle over Ukraine just isn’t being taken almost critically sufficient — I’m pressured to confess that the conservative lunatics are proper. The present administration and well-liked media retailers have endorsed a plan of action in Ukraine that’s pushing the world inexorably towards a disaster that would not solely spell the demise of recent civilization, however might fairly presumably put us on the street towards human extinction. The administration is ready to pursue this reckless overseas coverage, in no small half, as a result of the mainstream media has orchestrated a near-flawless PR marketing campaign on Ukraine’s behalf, casting the battle as a story of noble David versus monstrous Goliath. I personally am responsible of contributing to this notion, framing Ukraine as a tragic protagonist in a Slate column earlier this yr. The issue is, whereas all that makes for a superb story, it performs quick and free with the reality — a fact that seemingly solely right-wing weirdos, who’re at all times greater than keen to be rude or politically incorrect, appeared to have grasped. In response to the popularity that the U.S. is stumbling towards the nuclear cataclysm, Tucker Carlson has been characteristically blunt: ‘Why do I care what’s going on within the battle between Ukraine and Russia?’ he asks. Carlson is each a jerk and a conspiratorial loon, and his phrasing of the query betrays a complete lack of primary human sympathy for the individuals of Ukraine. But, nevertheless [glassbowl]-ish his wording is perhaps, he identifies an uncomfortable line of inquiry all of us must face: Is saving Ukraine, even within the ghastly occasion that Russia makes use of nuclear weapons in opposition to its individuals, value risking the way forward for our planet? For my part, the reply is clearly and overwhelmingly no.”

2022

The Senate:

The Home:

“What wouldn’t it take for Democrats to maintain the Home?” [The Hill]. “[O]f the remaining 20 contests, Republicans want simply seven extra seats to clinch the bulk, whereas Democrats must notch 14. For Democrats to hit that focus on, they should win all the races they at the moment lead and some others the place Republicans maintain a slight edge. Somewhat greater than half of the undecided races are in California, the place all lively voters are despatched mail ballots, making a extra sluggish tabulation course of. Arizona, Colorado, Oregon every have two uncalled races, whereas Alaska, Maine and New York every have one.”

* * *

“As I Have Been Saying All Alongside” [Atrios, Eschaton]. “One factor I attempt to level out is . There isn’t exactly one cause Dems did higher than all of the extremely paid politics knowers thought. I’m not going to say it’s as a result of they lastly took my recommendation and embraced full communism. I don’t even have sturdy opinions on what they did proper. My take is extra that perhaps individuals don’t find it irresistible all that a lot when Republicans are assholes, they usually haven’t tried a lot else these days.” • One other method of claiming that is that single causes are service choices from consultants and strategists.

“How a stunning Democratic technique could have staved off the midterm pink wave” [Vox]. “A high-risk Democratic technique — financially backing far-right, Trump-endorsed Republicans of their primaries — seems to have paid off within the midterms. As NPR reported Friday, six Democratic challengers in races the place Democratic organizations donated to extremist Republican candidates have to date gained their contests. The query that looms over this tactic has but to be answered: at what price?” • Hopefully, at the price of Democrats by no means once more yammering about fascism. In spite of everything, the good and the nice of Germany thought they might management Hitler, too. How’d that work out?

The cash:

✅อันดับผู้บริจาคเงินให้พรรค democrat ที่น่าสนใจ
1. George Soros
2.Sam Bankman – FTX***
4.Kennth Griffin -ผู้ก่อตั้ง Citadel
8.Larry Ellison – เจ้าของ Oracle
9.Peter Thiel- ผู้ร่วมก่อตั้ง Paypal และนักลงทุน Fb pic.twitter.com/reVn1jGR78

— Poramin (@InsomPoramin) November 14, 2022

* * *

AZ:

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Invoice Gates on Arizona midterm outcomes: “This necessary hand rely will be capable to reveal to all of us whether or not the machines are doing an correct job. […] It is Republicans and Democrats having eyeballs on every little thing.” pic.twitter.com/eYSlMasBxm

— The Hill (@thehill) November 13, 2022

“There’s by no means time to do it proper, however there’s at all times time to do it over.” Why not simply begin with the hand rely?

NY: “AOC: The New York State Democratic Occasion’s Corruption Could Have Price Democrats the Home” [The Intercept]. AOC: “[A]nother prime mistake is that in New York State, I believe that — Cuomo could also be gone, however his whole infrastructure, a lot of his infrastructure and far of the political equipment that he put in place remains to be there. And this can be a equipment that’s disorganized, it’s sycophantic. It depends on lobbyists and large cash. And it actually undercuts the power for there to be affirming grassroots and state-level organizing throughout the state. And so when that languishes and there’s little or no organizing taking place, yeah, I imply, principally, you’re leaving a void for Republicans to stroll into. And so I truly assume a variety of these Republican video games aren’t essentially as sturdy as they might appear, I believe it’s actually from an absence. And it’s a testomony to the corruption that has been allowed to proceed within the New York State Democratic Occasion. ‘Cuomo could also be gone, however his whole infrastructure, a lot of his infrastructure and far of the political equipment that he put in place remains to be there.’ We noticed that with India Walton.” • Useful map:

That is very dangerous for them. pic.twitter.com/suXcQVzqh2

— guillotine stan (@guillotine_stan) November 11, 2022

Not a superb look.

TX: “Beto’s Misplaced 12 months” [Texas Observer]. “O’Rourke’s private attraction, which helped propel him to untimely political stardom, was evident even in defeat. The gang evinced its ardour for him as a person. But the exhibiting was a shadow of 2018, when his concession speech was at a packed minor league baseball stadium. Again then—after falling simply 2.6 factors shy of unseating U.S. Senator Ted Cruz—O’Rourke mentioned: “I’m as hopeful as I’ve ever been in my life,” and it was plausible. All of us knew then he would run once more for one thing; it was just the start. However now, he says he doesn’t know what’s subsequent, he implies he’s finished working, and it’s plausible.”

2024

“A Biden coalition is (barely) saving democracy. POTUS 46 should run once more in ‘24.” [Will Bunch, The Inquirer]. “[Biden’s announcement of his Presidential run on May 18, 2019 in Philadelphia] was the birthdate of what we would have liked to start out calling ‘the Biden coalition.’ They’re the less-noisy majority of People who imagine in counting the votes, in decency, in increasing civil rights as an alternative of curbing them, and — corny because it sounds to a few of the Beltway pundits — in democracy. From college campus to leaf-blown suburbs, from predominantly Black metropolis neighborhoods to Indigenous reservations, these voters proved simply sufficient to rescue America from a disastrous Trump second time period in 2020 — they usually did it once more in Tuesday’s midterms…. That is all very a lot in step with the groundbreaking analysis by the Harvard political scientists Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky, the authors of 2018′s How Democracies Die, who confirmed that the international locations that efficiently thwarted dictatorships have been those wherein rival factions dropped their ideological variations to as an alternative rally behind a protection of democracy. It wasn’t 100% clear earlier than Tuesday’s midterms, however the Biden coalition — the Democratic base, joined by Gen Z voters who may usually favor the democratic socialism of a Sen. Bernie Sanders, and white suburban “By no means Trumper” ex-Republicans — is starting to look precisely like what the authors described. This alliance have to be preserved in any respect prices.” • All prices? As a result of I can consider some prices that Bunch doesn’t point out….

Democrats en Déshabillé

Affected person readers, evidently persons are truly studying the back-dated publish! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are numerous updates. So I must try this. –lambert

I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Occasion (“the Democrat Occasion is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated publish, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “reside” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Occasion is, in reality, a tough downside. I do assume the paragraph that follows is on level all the best way again to 2016, if not earlier than:

The Democrat Occasion is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Occasion didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” after all.) Second, all of the working elements of the Occasion reinforce one another. Go away apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Occasion (ka-ching, however not completely) these components comprise a community — a Flex Internet? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with property within the press and the intelligence neighborhood.

Notice, after all, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is proscribed by different courses; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial mannequin’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to thoughts. Suck up, kick down.

* * *

First transfer in opposition to the gerontocracy:

And so it begins: The quiet dialogue about time period limits for Dem leaders/committee chairs is beginning to bubble to the floor

Right here’s a proposal Rep. Invoice Foster is circulating proposing secret poll votes for committee leaders after a six yr time period: pic.twitter.com/qAIuE4vdIN

— Heather Caygle (@heatherscope) November 13, 2022

Or not–

“Pelosi says Democrats asking her to remain in management” [The Hill]. “Pelosi on Sunday mentioned she has not made up her thoughts on whether or not she would search a Home management place, including she would decide by the top of the month. She added that her focus now could be seeing the celebration by way of the top of the midterm elections as a number of Home races have but to be known as and neither Democrats nor Republicans have captured a majority within the decrease chamber. Democrats have retained their management of the Senate after the midterms. ‘I’ve a day job,’ Pelosi mentioned. ‘A part of it’s to be the political chief and to get us the absolute best victory, after which not worrying about my future, however for the long run for the American individuals.’”

Realignment and Legitimacy

“‘Fascism has a Future’: Carlo Ginzburg interviewed by Joseph Confavreux” [Verso (NL)]. Ginzburg: “I believe it’s obligatory to tell apart between the anachronism of questions and the anachronism of solutions. Doing historical past means beginning with questions which are associated to the current, however which the dialogue with paperwork and a special society permits us to reformulate. The concept historical past teaches us to reside can’t be taken actually. Slightly, historic data features as an antidote to poison. I dedicate a chapter of the guide to the analogy proposed by Machiavelli, based mostly on Michelangelo’s David, between founding a republic and modelling a statue. Already, in The Artwork of Warfare, he had in contrast the imposition of a kind, i.e. of a behaviour, on ‘coarse males’ to the act of making a fantastic statue from a block of tough marble. For me, this can be a downside that has spectacular resonances with the current as a result of it touches on the manipulation of the plenty. The Mussolini regime has disappeared, however it leaves a legacy that may be reworked by totally different applied sciences.” • Effectively value a learn.

“Showdown Sluggish Down” [James Howard Kunstler, Clusterf*ck Nation]. “What’s up with dragging out the vote rely in Arizona and Nevada, promising to ship the final 20-percent of the rely by a sure hour after which lacking their deadline greater than as soon as, whereas dribbling out a number of packets of, shall we embrace, selection cuts, right here and there? I’ll let you know what: an organized mind-fuck. The Democrats are aiming to demoralize their adversaries and exhaust them psychologically in order that when victory lastly comes, the winners will likely be too emotionally depleted to do their end-zone dances — and the voters will likely be too dispirited to cheer…. The fundamental Democratic Occasion election technique in latest a long time has been to show the voting public into so many hundreds of thousands of proverbial froggies within the pot of water set to slowly rise to boiling in order that the froggies don’t discover they’re getting cooked till it’s too late to leap out of the pot. The Democrat’s Lawfare troopers have slowly and systematically modified the strategies of voting and counting the votes, particularly to remove accountability for the huge scams and screw-ups which have occurred just lately. The modifications have been accepted as regular. . As a substitute, Lawfare obtained states to consolidate all of the motion in enormous impersonal voting facilities — usually sports activities arenas — the place lots of of election staff churned, and all kinds of frauds went unnoticed within the huge shuffle of exercise.” • In different phrases, the Democrats are eliminating the church girls (as Obama, I’ve heard, did with many, primarily feminine, volunteer celebration staff after 2008). That is believable, however I see no knowledge. Can readers affirm or deny?

“They Can’t Depend Even in Vegas Now? Transcript from “America This Week” [Matt Taibbi, TK News]. Enjoyable stuff:

We are able to argue about why that is taking place — the standard rationalization is a brand new inflow of mail-in ballots, which take longer to rely, with each events blaming one another for why — however editorializing on the topic has been weird for one more cause. Industrial media each earlier than (see right here, right here, right here, and right here) and after (see right here, right here, right here, and right here) the midterms has been full of tales about the way it’s completely tremendous that it now takes without end to rely votes in America. White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre even declared, ‘That’s how that is presupposed to work.’

Then again, if counting votes shortly is so important to instilling confidence in democracy, and ‘democracy itself’ is famously in bother, why aren’t we attempting tougher to repair this? Particularly in Nevada, a state well-known for its counting, the brand new tolerance for sloth hits the ear like an oar.

Right here’s Walter Kirn, broadcasting from Clark County Friday, on the seeming incapability of People to rely issues, even in a state the place reaching an correct rely each evening is a matter of life or dying:

Walter Kirn: This can be a city wherein umpteen-million quarters are dumped into slot machines each evening and counted inside hours. This can be a city that counts for a residing. If you happen to’ve seen On line casino, you understand how it really works. A couple of of these {dollars} could go into some individuals’s pockets, or they used to, no less than earlier than MGM…

Matt Taibbi: However when you’re off by a pair bucks, you find yourself in a gap a few miles north of the town, don’t you?

Walter Kirn: Precisely. In the event that they counted cash the best way they’re counting ballots, these individuals could be in Lake Mead tied to a cinder block. So it’s more and more exhausting for me, as at a sure degree I’m simply the common individual, and the common individual mustn’t must have a Jesuitical, theologically exact perception into all of the several types of ballots, and all of the methods wherein they’re delivered, and all of the phases at which they’re tabulated. The outsider, the American citizen, has each proper to really feel that these processes are easy, goal and fast, and that they will’t have that confidence in that means to me that there’s a lot to be a dissident about on this nation.

The lack to get buy-in from voters, and particularly from the losers of those elections, who will need to have the arrogance that they misplaced pretty, is a systemic and religious failure. It could possibly’t be addressed just by criminalizing complaints or calling individuals names. It needs to be addressed on the root. And there appears to be little prospect that will probably be. So who wins and who loses now has turn into, to me, a secondary consideration. The true consideration is how do they keep religion in a system that actually wouldn’t suffice in a grocery retailer on the finish of the day, after they open the until.

And talking of “election integrity”:

“Election denial” was outlined on @FaceTheNation in the present day as “elevating unfounded doubts in regards to the validity or integrity of the 2020 election.” If this by some means doesn’t apply to years of Democrat rhetoric in regards to the 2016 election, the time period has no which means aside from as a partisan cudgel https://t.co/OaCga6fhsy pic.twitter.com/UUC5kmMl8Y

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) November 13, 2022

See: “These Are the Advertisements Russia Purchased on Fb in 2016” [New York Times]. • From 2017, nonetheless germane. It’s laughable to think about that these adverts, and the tiny finances so evidently used to create them, had any impression on the 2016 election in any respect.

“Election Administration at State and Native Ranges” [National Conference of State Legislatures]. “The U.S. is characterised by a extremely decentralized election administration system. County or municipal officers usually do the rubber-meets-the-road features of working an election, however the state and federal authorities every have roles, too. The result’s that no two states administer elections in precisely the identical method, and fairly a little bit of variation exists in election administration even inside states. Every state’s election administration construction and procedures grew organically over many a long time as occasions modified and administering an election turned an more and more advanced activity. The variety of election administration buildings between and inside states might be seen as a constructive or a adverse high quality, relying on who’s wanting, and when. Critics say the extent of native management can result in mismanagement and inconsistent software of the regulation. This usually comes into focus in giant federal elections particularly, when the media and the general public deal with how totally different the voting expertise might be relying on the place a voter lives. Then again, decentralization permits particular person jurisdictions to experiment and innovate—to see how elections may greatest be run for the state and the locality’s explicit circumstances. The dispersed accountability for working elections additionally makes it extraordinarily tough, if not inconceivable, to rig U.S. elections on the nationwide degree.” • A helpful hyperlink with many assets.

#COVID19

Lambert right here: I can’t name a winter surge, although we’ll actually have to attend for Thanksgiving journey. Nevertheless, excessive transmission (CDC), the elevation and continued improve in positivity (Walgreens), and the regular takeover of BQ.1* (CDC; Walgreens) are all a bit of unsettling (as is the obvious proliferation of variants). Keep protected on the market!

• Question from alert reader RK:

Associates have requested me to convey them house from an airport that’s about two hours distant. They may have returned from a two-week keep in Austin, TX. Who is aware of the place and with whom they’ve been throughout their time away!

To handle my discomfort at being cooped up in a automobile with them for that lengthy, I began wanting into small, transportable HEPA air filtration units that may run utilizing an inverter in my automobile’s cigarette lighter. This, plus masking and outdoors airflow through my automobile’s heating/cooling system looks as if an honest preventative measure. I’ve seen marketed models on the order of 4″×4″×8″ to be used in small rooms that might be accommodated in my automobile. The system plus inverter would run, say, $125-150.

Mayhaps, commuters in bigger cities have already tumbled onto comparable measures. Likely I’ve missed any report on such use of an air filtration system in NC. I hope you may direct me to such in order that I’d profit from others’ experiences in making my analysis. Any recommendation will likely be gratefully acquired.

Not solely do I not personal a automobile, I don’t recall a related research or product overview. (I do bear in mind, linked to, and can’t now discover, a research that confirmed the extra home windows you open in your automobile the higher, however that’s not an choice right here.) Readers? Particularly these with private expertise?

• “The Newest COVID-19 Variants Can Evade Vaccine Safety, In keeping with New Knowledge” [Time]. n = 88. “Dr. David Ho, director of Columbia College’s Aaron Diamond AIDS Analysis Heart (ADARC), and his group reported the outcomes from a set of research at an ADARC symposium. They confirmed how effectively a few of the newest variants—BQ.1, BQ.1.1, XBB, and XBB.1, which have been all derived from Omicron—are evading each vaccine-derived and infection-derived immunity…. Ho’s group performed what is probably going essentially the most complete look up to now at BQ.1, BQ.1.1, XBB, and XBB.1, and the way present immunity—from the unique mRNA vaccines, the brand new Omicron boosters, and pure infections—stands as much as them. Scientists took blood sera from 88 individuals in 5 teams (beneath) and uncovered it to the 4 variants within the lab…. The outcomes present that individuals who had been contaminated with BA.2, BA.4, or BA.5 usually skilled the smallest drop in neutralizing antibody ranges in opposition to in opposition to BQ.1 and BQ.1.1. However . Public-health specialists say that whereas vaccines could wane in efficacy in opposition to newer variants, they proceed to guard individuals from extreme COVID-19.” However “extreme” doesn’t embrace neurological or vascular harm from “delicate circumstances,” let alongside Lengthy Covid, after all, as a result of the general public well being institution has been captured by hospitals, and for fairly a while, too. Extra: “‘,’ says Ho. for COVID-19, he says.” • Oh.

• About “residing in concern”:

• Maskstravaganza: “Ontario will urge indoor masking as ‘three-headed monster’ strains hospital assets” [Toronto Star]. “Requires a return to necessary masking have been rising in some medical circles, however a latest ballot instructed the inhabitants is evenly cut up for and in opposition to — elevating questions on how effectively a return to difficult-to-enforce masks mandates would work. A Discussion board survey performed Tuesday for the Star discovered 53 per cent of respondents strongly or considerably agree that the province ought to convey again a masks mandate, and 47 per cent mentioned they disagreed considerably or strongly. Absolutely 28 per cent mentioned they might not observe a masking rule and solely 16 per cent mentioned they put on masks, in keeping with the interactive voice response ballot of 1,007 randomly chosen Ontarians over 18. It’s thought of correct inside three proportion factors, 19 occasions out of 20. Charges of masking in indoor public locations stay low regardless of encouragement from well being officers for individuals to put on masks after they really feel in danger, significantly in crowded conditions. On TTC subway vehicles, for instance, the proportion of passengers sporting masks is often tiny.” • Propaganda labored in opposition to masks. Presumably, propaganda would work for them as effectively (“We’ve got at all times been at struggle with Eastasia”).

• “Covid Melancholy Is Actual. Right here’s What You Have to Know” [New York Times]. ” In a 2021 research, greater than half of American adults reported signs of main depressive dysfunction after a coronavirus an infection. The danger of creating these signs — in addition to different psychological well being issues — stays excessive as much as a yr after you’ve recovered…. Well being issues, grief from shedding family members, social isolation and the disruption of on a regular basis actions have been a recipe for misery, particularly early on within the pandemic. However in contrast with those that managed to keep away from an infection (but in addition handled the tough impacts of residing by way of a pandemic), individuals who obtained sick with Covid-19 appear to be rather more weak to a wide range of psychological well being issues. ‘There’s one thing in regards to the coronavirus that actually impacts the mind,’ [Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis and the chief of research and development at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System] mentioned. ‘Some individuals get melancholy, whereas different individuals can have strokes, nervousness, reminiscence issues and sensory issues.’ Nonetheless others don’t have any neurological or psychiatric situations in any respect, he mentioned.” • This text is a bit anodyne. One million lifeless, and no public recognition or mourning no matter — the place’s the Covid quilt on the Nationwide Mall? — certainly has a higher impression on on the general public thoughts than “social isolation” and “the disruption of on a regular basis actions” (one other method of claiming “vax solely”). To this I might add grief that this nation is…. merely not what I assumed it was, on the most elementary degree of interpersonal relations; my revulsion at calls for to “smile!” is my technique to course of this. (Additionally, I don’t imagine for a minute that melancholy is a operate of the mind alone; it’s a “complete of physique” illness.)

• ”Lengthy COVID and Me: A True Story” [Leonard H. Calabrese, Healio]. This ran in Hyperlinks, and it’s value studying full, however I need to spotlight this passage: “Sarcastically, simply as I didn’t self-diagnose my acute COVID-19 breakthrough by attributing it to only a dangerous chilly, I used to be additionally in denial relating to my lengthy COVID analysis.” • These two episodes of denial appear essential to the unfold of Covid, each in Calabrese’s case and society-wide. And but Calabrese merely mentions them, and doesn’t mirror on them (which might be, I suppose, interpreted as a 3rd episode of denial). However what’s the mechanism? Are there, as one may say, “social determinants”?

Transmission

Right here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to neighborhood transmission. (That is the map CDC wants only hospitals to look at, not you.)

Positivity

From the Walgreen’s check positivity tracker, printed November 12:

-0.1%. Down.

Wastewater

NOT UPDATED Wastewater knowledge (CDC), November 7:

Lambert right here: Every dot is a sewershed you can click on for knowledge. Since yesterday we discovered elevated ranges in JFK/LGA’s county, Queens, I seemed in the present day at ORD’s county, Prepare dinner (one in every of two counties, truly). Not elevated, which is sweet information, all of the extra as a result of Illinois ‘runs scorching” in comparison with most different states. UPDATE Holy Lord, the one factor near real-time info we’ve obtained on airports, and CDC can’t replace the info on a well timed foundation. How am I presupposed to be doing my private threat evaluation?

November 6:

Variants

Lambert right here: It’s past irritating how gradual the variant knowledge is. Does no one within the public well being institution get a promotion for monitoring variants? Are there no grants? Is there a single lab that does this work, and everyone will get the outcomes from them? [grinds teeth, bangs head on desk]. UPDATE Sure. See NC right here on Pango. Each Friday, a stately, educational tempo completely incompatible with defending your self in opposition to a variant exhibiting doubling habits.

Variant knowledge, nationwide (Walgreens), printed November 11 October 25:

Lambert right here: BQ.1* shifting alongside fairly briskly.

Lambert right here: Transferring to the date at backside left; the date within the notes part is off, simply because the date within the positivity chart was off. The date at backside left solely applies to the field that encloses it, not your entire chart.

Variant knowledge, nationwide (CDC), October 22 (Nowcast off):

BQ.1* shifting alongside fairly briskly. New York/New Jersey (Area 2) numbers are larger:

NOT UPDATED And as a examine, since New York is a BQ.1* hotbed, New York hospitalization continues to extend, up to date November 10:

Lambert right here: Continued rise.

Deaths

Demise price (Our World in Knowledge):

Whole: 1,100,127 – 1,099,856 = 271 (271 * 365 = 98,915, which is in the present day’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “residing with” Covid (fairly a bit larger than the minimizers would love, although they will discuss themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I may need to resolve that is what the powers-that-be think about “mission achieved” for this explicit tranche of dying and illness).

It’s good that for deaths I’ve a easy, day by day chart that simply retains chugging alongside, not like every little thing else CDC and the White Home are screwing up or letting go darkish, good job.

Stats Watch

Inflation: “United States Shopper Inflation Expectations” [Trading Economics]. “US shopper inflation expectations for the yr forward elevated to five.9 % in October of 2022 from 5.4 % in September, after three consecutive months of a slowdown. The median anticipated change in gasoline costs rose by 4.3 proportion factors to 4.8%, the most important one-month improve on report. Expectations about year-ahead worth modifications rose by 0.7 proportion level for meals (to 7.6%) and 0.1 proportion level for lease (to 9.8%).” • What do readers assume? What’s taking place on the grocery cabinets and on the gasoline pump?

Tech: “America’s Ring doorbell digital camera obsession highlights the scourge of mass surveillance [NBC]. “Blanketing our neighborhoods in surveillance units that promote a tradition of suspicion makes all of us much less protected. Units like Ring and the apps related to them are made to maintain us on fixed alert. They ping us with notifications, demanding our consideration, and provide “infinite scroll” like Fb and Instagram, however for neighborhood crime. These units make watching each other always really feel acceptable, anticipated and even addicting. They current surveillance as the brand new regular, and concern together with it. The Neighbors App, related to Amazon Ring, boasted greater than 10 million customers in 2020. Entrance doorways throughout the U.S. are smothered in hundreds of thousands of comparable units, like Google Nest and Wyze. And tens of hundreds of thousands of individuals publish movies and pictures from these cameras to neighborhood watch boards like Citizen App (which accurately rebranded itself from ‘Vigilante’) and NextDoor. A latest report from nonprofit analysis group Knowledge & Society discovered that householders are more and more utilizing Ring and different networked doorbell cameras to surveil and punish supply drivers, turning doorsteps into humiliating efficiency evaluations for underpaid gig staff. And, this July, we discovered that Amazon infringes on our civil liberties by handing over Ring video to the police with out notification or warrants.” • Jeff, good job.

Tech: “Twitter’s potential collapse might wipe out huge information of latest human historical past” [MIT Technology Review]. I do know liberal Democrats, together with their [glassbowl] buddies within the intelligence neighborhood, have their knickers in a twist as a result of they’ve misplaced their energy to censor a significant platform. Whether or not their dogpiling interprets into, or will produce, a “collapse” is unclear to me. As far as I can inform, exits to rivals quantity within the tens of hundreds. So let’s wait and see. “A part of what makes Twitter’s potential collapse uniquely difficult is that the ‘digital public sq.’ has been constructed on the servers of a non-public firm, says O’Connor’s colleague Elise Thomas, senior OSINT analyst with the ISD. It’s an issue we’ll need to take care of many occasions over the approaching a long time, she says: ‘That is maybe the primary actually massive check of that.’ Twitter’s ubiquity, its adoption by almost 1 / 4 of a billion customers within the final 16 years, and its standing as a de facto public archive, has made it a gold mine of data, says Thomas. ‘In a single sense, this truly represents an infinite alternative for future historians—we’ve by no means had the capability to seize this a lot knowledge about any earlier period in historical past,’ she explains. However that giant scale presents an enormous storage downside for organizations. For eight years, the US Library of Congress took it upon itself to take care of a public report of all tweets, however it stopped in 2018, as an alternative choosing solely a small variety of accounts’ posts to seize. ‘It by no means, ever labored,” says William Kilbride, govt director of the Digital Preservation Coalition. The information the library was anticipated to retailer was too huge, the quantity popping out of the firehose too nice. ‘Let me put that in context: it’s the Library of Congress. That they had a few of the greatest experience on this subject. If the Library of Congress can’t do it, that tells you one thing fairly essential,’ he says. That’s problematic, as a result of Twitter is teeming with important content material from the previous 16 years that would assist tomorrow’s historians perceive the world of in the present day.” • I’m undecided I imagine this story (which, in any case, treats Eliot as a critical supply and never a spook). Certainly the Twitter “firehose” is a fraction of what NSA has on its servers in Utah? So, two birds, one stone: Requistion Twitter from Musk and make it a public utility. Then wipe the NSA knowledge heart — certainly principally home surveillance they’ve obtained no proper to have — and put Twitter on it. Drawback solved!

Tech:

I don’t want to appear unsympathetic to Playbill’s dilemma, however “legitimately decipher[ing] precise information from insidious rhetoric” is, effectively, a generic downside. It’s not restricted to Twitter.

Tech: “The Age of Social Media Is Ending” [The Atlantic]. “A worldwide broadcast community the place anybody can say something to anybody else as usually as potential, and the place such individuals have come to assume they deserve such a capability, and even that withholding it quantities to censorship or suppression—that’s only a horrible thought from the outset.” • Commentary:

Tech: “The Atlantic Is A Shitty Propaganda Rag Run By Elitist Wankers” [Caitlin Johnstone]. “Nothing enrages the official approved commentariat just like the widespread riff raff accessing platforms and audiences. That’s why the official approved commentariat have been essentially the most vocal voices calling for web censorship and complaining in regards to the rise of a extra democratized info setting. These elitist wankers have been fuming for years about the best way the uninitiated rabble have been granted the power to not simply discuss, however to speak again…. In fact the imperial narrative managers at The Atlantic could be against regular individuals getting a voice in public discourse. When your job is to manage the narrative, the larger a monopoly you maintain over it the higher.”

Tech: Whose social capital is valued, and whose just isn’t:

At the moment’s Worry & Greed Index: 66 Greed (earlier shut: 66 Greed) [CNN]. One week in the past: 61 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Worry; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Nov 14 at 12:15 PM EST.

Rapture Index: Closes down one on Wild Climate. “The dearth of exercise has downgraded this class” [Rapture Ready]. Report Excessive, October 10, 2016: 189. Present: 186. (Keep in mind that bringing on the Rapture is good.) It appears that evidently 190 is a crucial psychological barrier.

Guillotine Watch

Class Warfare

“Appendix 1- Coming Full Circle” (podcast) [Mike Duncan, Revolutions]. • In a collection of eight Appendices, Duncan sums up his historiography of revolutions. I extremely suggest them — as certainly I like to recommend your entire collection, which began in 2013 (!!) with Charles Stuart and ended this yr with Nicholas Romanov.

Information of the Wired

For subway followers:

However what on earth is a “pad”?

“Keith Levene, guitarist and founding member of the Conflict, dies at 65” [Entertainment Weekly]. “Born in London in 1957, Julian Keith Levene obtained his begin within the music trade at age 15 working as a roadie for the prog-rock band Sure throughout their Near the Edge tour. At age 16, Levene befriended Mick Jones and the musical duo would go on to create the Conflict alongside vocalist Joe Strummer, bassist Paul Simonon, and drummer Terry Chimes in 1976….. Whereas Levene departed from the rock group earlier than they’d an opportunity to report any music, he’s nonetheless credited with co-writing one in every of their songs: the scorching single “What’s My Title,” which appeared on their eponymous debut report in 1977. In 1978, Levene teamed up with John Lydon — a.okay.a the Intercourse Pistols’ notorious lead singer Johnny Rotten — to kind the post-punk group Public Picture Ltd. The band, which additionally included bassist Jah Wobble and drummer Jim Walker, launched their debut album, Public Picture: First Subject, that very same yr.” • I purchased Metallic Field as quickly because it got here out. It was nice.

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