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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Hen Tune of the Day
Home Wren (Northern). Frog Hole, Walla Walla, Washington, United States. “This chicken was singing each morning earlier than daybreak, outdoors my residence.”
In Case You May Miss…
(1) Swing states replace.
(2) Hen flu and the CDC; Mandy bobbing and weaving.
(3) Employment scenario.
(4) Crocheting and knitting, with musical accompaniments.
Politics
“So lots of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are the truth is a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Biden Administration
“The Solely U.S. Lawmaker Born in Ukraine Is Now Skeptical of Extra Support” [Wall Street Journal]. “Rep. Victoria Spartz speaks in extremely private phrases concerning the horrors that her family and friends in Ukraine have witnessed since Russia invaded her residence nation greater than two years in the past. Her 95-year-old grandmother died a number of months after a bomb blew out the home windows in her house. ‘The stress was laborious on her,’ she mentioned. However in terms of the U.S. sending billions in additional support to the beleaguered nation, Spartz is skeptical…. In a sequence of interviews, Spartz, 45 years outdated, mentioned she desires a clearer technique from President Biden on U.S. involvement within the struggle and a more in-depth eye on how support is spent. She additionally desires any support despatched to Ukraine to be supplied as a mortgage, and for the administration to pay extra consideration to points nearer to residence. ‘I perceive the significance of this battle and the implications if Russia goes to prevail, however I’m additionally not very naive. If we don’t have correct oversight, we’re not going to attain our objectives,’ she mentioned. ‘We can not have these endless wars.’ Voters in Spartz’s suburban Indianapolis district are against Ukraine support for lots of the similar causes, she mentioned, mirroring nationwide pressures on incumbent Republicans.” • Hmm. That will change, after all, if and when Republicans management the chief department once more.
2024
Lower than a 12 months to go!
RCP Ballot Averages, April 5
Right here is Friday’s RCP ballot. Trump remains to be up in all of the Swing States (more here), but still leading with one exception: PA. I’ve highlighted it again, (1) because Biden is now up there, and (2) it’s an outlier, has been for weeks. Why isn’t Trump doing well there? (I’ll work out a better way to do this, but for now: Blue dot = move toward Biden; red dot = move toward Trump. No statistical signficance to any of it, and state polls are bad anyhow!)
* * * Trump (R): “When Trump needs cash, a California bank and one of its top shareholders have come to the rescue” [Associated Press]. Don Hankey and Axos bank once more. “Over the past two years, Axos Bank, as well as its largest individual shareholder, California billionaire Don Hankey, have collectively extended more than $500 million in financing that has benefited Trump, records show. The cash influx has helped Trump to pay off debts and pocket a tidy profit while escaping from a lease on his money-losing former hotel in Washington. It also covered a $175 million down payment he made this week on an eye-popping civil fraud penalty. Axos Bank officials as well as Hankey have said that the deals offer them a financial upside. But as Trump again pursues the White House, ethics and legal experts question what the lenders may ask in return if there’s a future Trump presidency, considering even small regulatory changes can translate into millions of dollars in earnings.” • As usual Trump deals direct, instead of working through straws….
* * * Trump (R): “‘The nuclear button’: Special counsel could seek removal of judge in Trump classified docs case, attorneys warn” [NBC]. “Special counsel Jack Smith could soon seek to have the judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case recused, prosecutors and defense attorneys warn, describing Smith as being pressed to the ‘breaking point’ over arguments his office said could taint a trial irrevocably. Smith faulted Judge Aileen Cannon in a scathing rebuke for seeming to take at face value Trump’s ‘fundamentally flawed’ claim around a president’s official and personal records when she asked both sides to put forth competing versions of instructions for jurors in the case and said her request would ‘distort’ the trial. Smith indicated in that filing that if Cannon ruled against federal prosecutors, this could be a trigger for an appeal to the 11th Circuit that could remove her from the case. ‘He is close to pushing the nuclear button,’ said Palm Beach County State Attorney David Aronberg. ‘It is a high burden to reach, and it is rarely done, but her proposed jury instructions may have pushed him to the breaking point.’” • Another way of saying “breaking point” is “over-reach,” as Smith did when trying McAuliffe. (And since when does a prosector determine what does and does not “distort” a trial?)
* * * Trump (R): “1 in 5 GOP primary voters keep bucking Trump. What does it mean?” [WaPo]. “Nearly 1 in 5 GOP primary voters across four contests Tuesday voted for an option other than the presumptive nominee. That’s about the same proportion that voted against him on the last big primary day, March 19…. If you exclude low-turnout caucuses and deep-red Southern states, Trump is ceding an average of 20 percent since Super Tuesday.” • Handy map (the states are laid out as they would be on a map of the United States, though it takes a minute to see that):
I have highlighted the swing states in yellow. I don’t think people who don’t vote for the Republican on primary day necessarily vote Republican on election day, but if I were the Trump campaign, I’d be concerned about MI (32% (!!)), and NC (26%). PA and NV are yet to come.
* * * * * * PA: “Democrats should be jittery about Pennsylvania voter registration trends” [Washington Examiner]. “Blue-collar voters became willing to leave the party altogether, especially after Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) made it efficient when he implemented a new measure that allowed residents getting driver’s licenses and ID cards to be opted into their voter registration. Despite Republican lawmakers bellyaching about Shapiro’s move, in the first month alone, 3,194 Democrats, 4,052 independents, and a whopping 7,657 Republicans have registered. If you are doing the math, as many Republicans registered in the state as Democrats and independents together, and even independent registration outpaced the Democrats by nearly 900. In July of last year, Democrats held a 480,000 voter registration advantage over Republicans, but by Oct. 10, that margin had fallen to 446,467. And the trend has continued in the six months since then.”
* * * “No Labels officially drops out of the 2024 race. The truth is they were never in it.” [USA Today]. “No Labels dropped plans Thursday for a so-called unity ticket, which was expected to be a moderate Republican running for president with an equally moderate Democrat as vice president.” That’s a damn shame. More: “The animosity for No Labels was often rooted in the group’s secrecy, operating as a nonprofit with millions of dollars from donors it refused to identify.” • Maybe the names of the donors are in the pocket of Joe Lieberman’s funeral suit, in his coffin. Still, they kept the grift going for fourteen years, and that’s something. Anyhow, they are said to have ballot access in 21 states, and now all that’s all wasted. Sad.
* * * “Inside a G.O.P. Plan to Encourage Early Voting Despite Trump’s Attacks” [New York Times]. “Inside a sprawling compound in Phoenix, leaders of the influential conservative group Turning Point Action were hatching plans to fix what they see as a mortal threat to the Republican Party: its voters’ avoidance of early voting, especially by mail, since the 2020 election.” • IMNSHO, “early voting” is wrong for three reasons: (1) It reinforces party loyalty, the last thing we need; (2) it makes it impossible for voters to change their minds having voted early, in response to a gaffe, a policy change, or “events, dear boy, events”; (3) in principle, the entire electorate should vote based on the same set of information, and that’s only possible when the vote takes place at one time.
Our Famously Free Press
“The Washington press corps doesn’t have a freaking clue” [Dan Froomkin, Press Watch]. “Being the lead writer for the New York Time’s signature On Politics newsletter is one of the most influential jobs in the industry these days, and the email that popped up in my inbox announcing the latest hire for that job – a Boston Globe reporter named Jess Bidgood who had previously worked for the Times — made it painfully clear that she is absolutely clueless about the topic she is now covering, and intentionally so. Offered an opportunity to explain what she found particularly compelling about the coming election, Bidgood didn’t talk about how the Republican Party has succumbed to the extreme Christian far-right. She didn’t talk about how Trump was a hateful, dangerous demagogue. She didn’t even mention the fate of democracy or the rule of law. Let me be very clear here: Whether or not the country succumbs to fascism is a helluva political story no matter how you feel about it. A Trump victory would profoundly change how government and justice are practiced. If you don’t understand that, you are a wildly incompetent political reporter.” • Froomkin was one of the original bloggers at WaPo, back in the day, and they dinged him for it, so I’m reluctant to just utterly trash the guy. But I don’t see how anyone can look at the Censorship Industrial Complex and not see elements of fascism. Fascism is not noted for ideological consistency; rather, it is an enormous smorgasbord of badness, from which both parties can pick and choose (I don’t much like threatening election workers, for example). It’s also perfectly reasonable to see the post-Reconstruction South as fascist — the Nazis came to study Jim Crow, after all — or, for that matter, some of the nastier elements of the Wilson Administration (like, say, the Espionage Act). This vision is, in fact, bleaker than the view that electing one party solves the problem.
Pandemics
“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
Covid 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 (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, 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, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Bird Flu
Just like the travel and commercial real estate market seemed to drive COVID policy, watch out for dairy cattle associations to drive H5N1 policy. https://t.co/KYQPim488u
— Michael Olesen 💉😷🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@maolesen) April 4, 2024
Yep. Egg producers are accustomed to culling all their inventory; chickens are low cost. Cows are usually not low cost ($2500 apiece, IIRC). So search for beef producers to restrict the cull, first resisting it completely, then resisting it for delicate circumstances, then resisting it for asymptomatic circumstances, and many others.
“Checks affirm avian flu on New Mexico dairy farm; probe finds cats constructive” [Center for Infectious Disease Reseach and Policy]. “Following yesterday’s announcement of the primary human H5N1 an infection linked to dairy cow publicity, the Texas Division of State Well being Providers issued a well being alert that urged well being suppliers to be vigilant for folks with signs from H5N1, particularly those that have had contact with doubtlessly contaminated animals. It additionally famous that in March, investigators collected samples from a number of animals in Texas and Kansas. Wild birds, cats, and dairy cows have been examined as a result of they confirmed sickness indicators. ‘Additional testing of those samples indicated the presence of avian influenza A(H5N1),’ the TDSHS mentioned. A press officer from the TDSHS confirmed in an e-mail that sick cats examined constructive for the virus. The Texas Animal Well being Fee mentioned in an e-mail that it has acquired lab affirmation of HPAI for 3 cats. Wild birds on affected farms had earlier examined constructive for H5N1, and proof is rising that the virus could also be spreading cow to cow. Investigations are nonetheless underway to type out how the virus is spreading on farms, which incorporates figuring out the extent of virus circulation in different animals or wildlife. Cats are among the many mammals beforehand recognized be contract H5N1, with infections reported in the US, Poland, and South Korea.” • Three cats, not, as rumor has it 50 (extra on cats from Flu Trackers). What pursuits me is the simple unfold between species. I haven’t seen anyone say this, so take it with a truckload of salts — plus, you understand my priors — however that makes me consider airborne unfold. Readers, hyperlinks?
“Why a leading bird flu expert isn’t convinced that the risk H5N1 poses to people has declined” (interview) [Ron Fouchier, STAT].
[FOUCHIER:] We have never seen this scale of infections in mammals, and in such diversity of mammals. . We know that flu is unpredictable. But we also know that adaptation of virus to mammals is not a good thing.
And:
[FOUCHIER:] [I]f there are infections in cows, we can offer personal protective equipment to the milkers and we can offer antiviral drugs to people who start to develop symptoms or conjunctivitis. But when tens of thousands of seals wash up on your shore, what are you going to do? And how are you going to prevent onward spread?
And these are the animals that we see. What about the animals that we don’t see so easily, like rats or mice? What’s happening? The large species we now know get infected easily. But the small species, we don’t even know.
And so . And that’s because these viruses are changing. And we have no experience [of how H5 behaves] in all these species. We can’t predict what’s going to happen.
Well worth a read, and some useful speculation on epidemiology as well; a useful antidote to Mandy’s soothing nostrums.
“Current U.S. Bird Flu Situation in Humans” [CDC]. Handy diagram of transmission:
NOTES
[1] Scope is “backyard poultry,” not an industrial operation;
[2] Droplet dogma;
[3] Note that according to CDC, the virus does not spread as an aerosol of the chicken breathes or squawks. (It looks to me like CDC “ported” the model of spreading pathogens from shaking bedsheets in hospitals to poultry.) Of course, CDC may be right! But they have been horribly, grievously wrong using exactly this paradigm before.
Sequelae: Covid
“Symptoms before and after COVID-19: a population and case-control study using prospective data” [European Respiratory Journal]. From the Abstract: ” Individuals reporting baseline symptoms had longer post-COVID symptom duration (from 10 to 15 days) with baseline fatigue nearly doubling duration. (910 of 1350 [67.4%]) . However, 440 (32.6%) had baseline symptoms, versus 255 (18.9%) of 1350 individuals with short illness (p<0.0001). Baseline symptoms increased the odds ratio for long illness (2.14 [CI: 1.78; 2.57]). Prior comorbidities were more common in individuals with long versus short illness. In individuals with long illness, baseline symptomatic (versus asymptomatic) individuals were more likely to be female, younger, and have prior comorbidities; and baseline and post-acute symptoms and symptom burden correlated strongly.
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (Biobot) Our curve has now flattened out at the level of previous Trump peaks. Not a great victory. Note also the area “under the curve,” besides looking at peaks. That area is larger under Biden than under Trump, and it seems to be rising steadily if unevenly.
[2] (Biobot) Backward revisions, I hate them.
[3] (CDC Variants) 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.
[4] (ER) CDC seems to have killed this off, since the link is broken, I think in favor of this thing. I will try to confirm. UPDATE Yes, leave it to CDC to kill a page, and then announce it was archived a day later. And heaven forfend CDC should explain where to go to get equivalent data, if any. I liked the ER data, because it seemed really hard to game…
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Looks like a very gradual leveling off to a non-zero baseline, to me.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC) Still down. “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†”.
[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.
[8] (Cleveland) Flattening.
[9] (Travelers: Posivitity) Now up, albeit in the rear view mirror.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) JN.1 dominates utterly.
Stats Watch
Finance: “A Lego Model of Financial Capitalism” [ASOMOCO]. “This type of exchange, in which we exchange money for promises-for-future-money, is called financial exchange, and the financial markets are where it happens.” Final paragraph: “Mix it all up! Perhaps that investment bank can take the other side of that credit default swap, and place it – alongside other CDS contracts – into a new offshore vehicle. Now they can sell the tranches of that new SYNTHETIC CDO! This is highly recommended if you wish to trigger a global financial crisis.” • I reall wanted more Lego, and the post is really above my paygrade. But the last paragraph gives me some confidence. Readers?
Tech: “Inside Big Tech’s underground race to buy AI training data” [Reuters]. “Tech giants like Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, Meta (META.O), opens new tab and Microsoft-backed (MSFT.O), opens new tab OpenAI initially used reams of data scraped from the internet for free [stolen] to train generative AI models like ChatGPT that can mimic human creativity. They have said that doing so is both legal and ethical, though they face lawsuits from a string of copyright holders over the practice…. Reuters spoke to more than 30 people with knowledge of AI data deals, including current and former executives at companies involved, lawyers and consultants, to provide the first in-depth exploration of this fledgling market – detailing the types of content being bought, the prices materializing, plus emerging concerns about the risk of personal data making its way into AI models without people’s knowledge or explicit consent.” • What risk? Why not just legalize it?
Tech: “Microsoft blamed for “a cascade of security failures” in Exchange breach report” [Ars Technica]. “A federal Cyber Safety Review Board has issued its report on what led to last summer’s capture of hundreds of thousands of emails by Chinese hackers from cloud customers, including federal agencies. It cites “a cascade of security failures at Microsoft” and finds that “Microsoft’s security culture was inadequate” and needs to adjust to a ‘new normal’ of cloud provider targeting…. ‘Throughout this review, the board identified a series of Microsoft operational and strategic decisions that collectively points to a corporate culture that deprioritized both enterprise security investments and rigorous risk management,’ the report reads.” • What is it with these Seattle firms…..
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 61 Greed (previous close: 48 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 69 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Apr 5 at 1:38:51 PM ET.
Book Nook
“Is the Bible a Great Book?” [Great Books Journal]. “In Can We Trust the Gospels, Peter J. Williams makes his case for the reliability of the Gospels… [T]he question is not so much whether the authors [of the Gospels] had an agenda but whether they reported accurately or not. In his opinion, there are many reasons to believe that the Gospels are accurate.” For example: “The testimony of women did not have much credibility in the ancient world…. The most important miracle in the Gospels is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. To maximize the credibility of this claim, an author who was fabricating a document would certainly not have opted to make women the first to find an empty tomb and to witness the risen Jesus. Yet that is precisely what the Gospel accounts tell us. Of course, this does not and cannot ever prove the resurrection, but it does show that the authors of the Gospel included a detail that was very likely to make their case seem far weaker than if men had discovered the empty tomb and were the first to interact with the risen Jesus. For example, it would have been easy to claim that Peter, the designated leader of the Church, was the first to bear witness to these momentous events. But the apostles had to wait for some time before witnessing this miracle. They were not chosen to be the first witnesses. Mary Magdalene, who was not only a woman but known to be a former sinner, has that place of honor in the Gospels.”
Class Warfare
“MacKenzie Scott’s game-changing philanthropy still mystifies nonprofits: ‘Her gifts are super generous, but unfortunately, they don’t provide long term sustainability’” [Fortune]. “Organizations working on ‘race and ethnicity’ and ‘youth development’ were the two largest categories according to the database of gifts on her Yield Giving website. Generally, Scott has given the most grants to organizations in the U.S. South, while in the latest round, California and New York were the states with the largest number of recipient nonprofits.” • In other words, anything to create verticals that divide the working class, the historic mission of NGOs.
“One-third of ride-share drivers have had a crash on the job, survey finds” (press release) [University of Chicago]. “While all drivers are at higher risk of a crash when driving while distracted or tired, ride-share drivers are uniquely susceptible to these conditions, the researchers said. They use their cellphones to get information about new passengers, for example, and they are often driving as a second job, which makes them more likely to be tired on the road. But a bigger distraction for these drivers may be their customers, said coauthor Lee Friedman, a research professor in the School of Public Health. ‘You’ve got a stranger entering your vehicle. They may be unruly. They may be drunk,’ he said. Not only can something go wrong — the driver can crash or the passenger might get sick vomit in the backseat — but the driver likely is driving their personal car. This and other factors may add even more stress and distraction while driving.’” • Travis, and the venture capital community: Take a bow!
News of the Wired
A propos of H5N1:
“The Sound of Knitting” [Kottke.org]. “In addition to featuring knitting-friendly music, the video includes a tour of the Norwegian municipality of Selbu, famous for its gorgeous mittens, as well as a virtual class on how to knit those mittens. It all seems lovely, although I confess I was slightly disappointed that ‘the sound of knitting’ wasn’t an ASMR video of needles clicking, although I’m sure that’s out there, too. I mean, I know it is because I’ve seen it. Plus, as a recent NY Times story outlined, handwork is good for the brain.”
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, lichen, 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 TH:
TH writes: “You may have noticed that the last few photos that I have sent were from my early January morning at the Sherman Library and Gardens in Corona Del Mar (a division of Newport Beach), California. I’m always surprised at the large variety of flowers blooming in January. Yes, even though I’m a native of the state and should be used to it. I didn’t see any identification signs on most of the plants there, but I think this one is Cowslip.” Readers? (Wow, that blue!)
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