2:00PM Water Cooler 8/21/2023 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Affected person readers, no orts and scraps in the present day. This can be a difficult RL week for me… –lambert

Fowl Tune of the Day

Striated Wren-Babbler, Rajah Sikatuna Nationwide Park, Bohol, Philippines. “A pair whistling a duet. Elevation: 380 m. Date added to IBC: June 22, 2016.”

Search for the Helpers

“After Maui’s lethal fires, one physician hits the street to assist these in want” [NPR (Reify99)]. 

KIHEI, Hawaii — Physician Reza Danesh is understood round Maui as simply Dr. Rez.

He spent twenty years in emergency medication — a dozen on Maui. A couple of years in the past, Dr. Rez opened a storefront clinic and outfitted a van as a cell workplace.

His clinic known as MODO which stands for Cellular Physician. The specialty – pressing care. He makes home calls and gives free medical care by way of his nonprofit MODO for the Individuals. He and a volunteer load up the van with meals and water to present away along with the free medical care.

“I designed this little Ford Sprinter myself. Ambulances are set to see a number of individuals so it doesn’t appear homey. This factor simply seems like house. I’ve a Persian rug even.”However on the shelter Dr. Rez will get a really totally different reception than the one he was anticipating.

“I wanna discover out, who’re you guys? What are you doing?,” requested volunteer supervisor Vesta Sung. She’s serving to at this shelter and says the Crimson Cross has taken over and is clamping down… Pissed off, sure. However not deterred. He tries once more the subsequent day. And he’ll attempt once more tomorrow. As a result of Dr. Reza Danesh makes home calls to wherever his sufferers want him.

The Crimson Cross can’t even interface with native NGOs?

Politics

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

The Constitutional Order

Two households, each alike in dignity,
In truthful Verona, the place we lay our scene,
From historic grudge break to new mutiny,
The place civil blood makes civil palms unclean. –William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare says the 2 households are “alike” in dignity, however he doesn’t say how a lot dignity they really have. If Verona’s households are like our events, the reply is “not a lot.”

* * *

“The Sweep and Power of Part Three” [William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, University of Pennsylvania Law Review]. I extremely suggest this piece (and the following dialogue at NC, beginning right here). As a former English main and a fan of shut studying, I’m not averse to “originalism,” of which Baude and Paulsen present a magisterial instance, within the sense that understanding the regulation as a textual content should start with understanding the plain, public which means of the phrases used when the textual content was written. That’s how I learn Shakespeare, or Joyce, so why not the Structure? Simply so long as understanding doesn’t finish there! In any case, I’m working by way of it. One factor I discover is that there do appear to have been quite a whole lot of rebellions and insurrections, not simply the Civil Conflict. To me, that is parallel to 1 lesson I drew from Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast (episode 1): There are quite a whole lot of revolutions, too. Alert reader Pensions Man summarizes Baude and Paulsen as follows:]

The authors undergo an exhaustive textual and originalism evaluation of Part Three, and their Federalist Society leanings don’t deter them from reaching their conclusion that officers in each State who’re charged with figuring out candidate {qualifications} ought to conclude that Donald Trump is disqualified from being on ballots due to the oath he took on Inauguration Day 2017 and subsequently violated by way of his function within the rebellion that passed off on January 6, 2021.

Taking “rebellion” as learn (I have to do extra studying), extra on my persevering with protection of Part Three.

Some have urged that invoking Part Three violates due course of. That is how Baude and Paulsen addressed the problem of their paper (I apologize for the inconsistently sized display dumps).

And:

FWIW!

* * *

“The disqualification of Donald Trump and different authorized city legends” [Jonathan Turley, The Hill]. Turley weighs in. Lastly. The important thing query: “Regardless of the in depth analysis of Baude and Paulsen, their evaluation ends the place it started: Was January 6 an rebellion or rise up? I’ve beforehand addressed the constitutional foundation for this declare. It’s, for my part, wildly out of sync with the aim of the modification, which adopted an precise rise up, the Civil Conflict. Democrats have beforehand sought to dam certification of Republican presidents and Democratic attorneys have challenged elections, together with on completely unsupported claims of machines flipping the outcomes. If we’re to immediately convert the 14th Modification right into a working barrier to those that search to problem election outcomes, then we’ve got to determine a vivid line to differentiate such instances…. regardless of formal articles of the second impeachment and years of specialists insisting that Trump was responsible of incitement and rebellion, Particular Counsel Jack Smith notably didn’t cost him with any such crime. The reason being apparent. The proof and constitutional requirements wouldn’t have supported a cost of incitement or rebellion. But these specialists nonetheless imagine that Trump could be barred from workplace with none such cost even being introduced, not to mention a conviction.” • One may argue (certainly, Baude and Paulsen, above, do) that election officers could make their very own willpower of what an “rebellion” is, and whether or not Trump engaged in a single, no matter what the Courts decide. I suppose it’s true {that a} Blue State’s Secretary of State (say) may do what Jack Smith was not keen to do, although it appears odd (besides, I suppose, when one considers the donations, the e book offers, and many others.). I increase once more the problem that the election officers will need cowl, and that the Censorship Industrial Advanced will likely be solely too keen to present it to them. Which is, for sure, very harmful.

“The Structure Prohibits Trump From Ever Being President Once more” [Michael Luttig and Laurence H. Tribe, The Atlantic]. Larry! How is the “incomparable” Louise Mensch doing? Extra: “Having thought lengthy and deeply in regards to the textual content, historical past, and function of the Fourteenth Modification’s disqualification clause for a lot of our skilled careers, . The disqualification clause operates independently of any such legal proceedings and, certainly, additionally independently of impeachment proceedings and of congressional laws. The clause was designed to function immediately and instantly upon those that betray their oaths to the Structure, whether or not by taking on arms to overturn our authorities or by waging battle on our authorities by making an attempt to overturn a presidential election by way of a cold coup.” • So, Jack Smith and Fani Willis even have weak instances? (Tribe and Luttig’s language is amusingly orotund. Actually rolls off the tongue.)

“Authorized students more and more increase constitutional argument that Trump must be barred from presidency” [CNN]. I don’t learn about “more and more.” Disqualifying Trump has been within the works for a while; the “rebellion” was adopted immediately, proper after the dude with the furry hat and the buffalo horns proclaimed a provisional authorities. Oh, wait…  (One does ponder whether the “rebellion” framing was gamed out.) Anyhow: “Beforehand, advocacy teams used the 14th Modification to contest the flexibility of Republican members of Congress Marjorie Taylor Inexperienced and Madison Cawthorn to be poll candidates in 2022 due to their vocal assist of the Capitol rioters [“rioters,” note well]. However judges determined neither may very well be disqualified. Nonetheless, one convicted Capitol rioter, Couy Griffin, was eliminated by a choose from an elected county workplace in New Mexico.” • Taking the authorized theorizing out for a take a look at drive….

Biden Administration

2024

Time for the Countdown Clock!

* * *

“Trump says he gained’t attend first GOP presidential debate” [The Hill]. “Former President Trump confirmed Sunday that he is not going to attend the primary Republican presidential debate subsequent week and left open the chance that he would skip future major debates, citing his sizable lead in nationwide polls as a major cause. In a submit on Fact Social, Trump cited a CBS Information ballot launched earlier Sunday that confirmed him main the subsequent closest candidate by 46 share factors. ‘, with Vitality Independence, Robust Borders & Navy, Greatest EVER Tax & Regulation Cuts, No Inflation, Strongest Economic system in Historical past, & rather more,’ Trump wrote. ‘I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES!’”

* * *

“Editorial: Gov. DeSantis begins altering his tune on Disney. Trump made him do it” [Miami Herald]. “DeSantis, in a Monday interview with CNBC amid a struggling presidential marketing campaign, advised that he and his allies had ‘mainly moved on’ from his combat with Disney, a battle in opposition to the Mouse that, up till now, he’s been shouting about from the mountaintops. ‘They’re suing the state of Florida. They’re going to lose that lawsuit. . . . . So what I’d say is, drop the lawsuit,’ he mentioned, including that Florida is a ‘excellent place to do enterprise.’ Only a few brief months in the past, in Could, the governor was nonetheless calling Disney ‘a multibillion-dollar firm that sexualizes kids.’” • Oh effectively. Seems “anti-wokeness” wasn’t the royal street to the White Home in spite of everything. Alas, DeSantis can’t pivot to populism, both. Walt Disney World’s governing district is a company fiefdom in a rustic the place every little thing is a company fiefdom of 1 kind or one other. I’d guess what works within the fever swamp of the Florida Republican Get together doesn’t play effectively on the nationwide stage.

* * *

“Hunter Biden’s attorneys threatened to place president on the stand: report” [New York Post]. “Hunter’s lawyer, Chris Clark, wrote a letter to prosecutors final October after information leaked that federal brokers had sufficient proof to cost the primary son with illegally shopping for a firearm whereas nonetheless utilizing crack cocaine. Clark mentioned that if the Justice Division charged Hunter, the protection can be compelled to place the commander in chief on the witness stand. ‘President Biden now unquestionably can be a reality witness for the protection in any legal trial,’ Clark wrote in a 32-page letter obtained by Politico…. In exchanges within the months prior, Clark and his staff typically instructed prosecutors throughout non-public negotiations that they have been apprehensive in regards to the intense political environment surrounding the case, in accordance with Politico.” • Which they then go on to muscle the prosecutor with? For a easy story a couple of father who loves his son?

“Pseudonym Joe: How Biden used private e mail to share some authorities enterprise with son Hunter” [JustTheNews]. “In late November 2014 — earlier than the remainder of the world knew that American Martin O’Connor was about to be launched from detention in Turkey — the U.S. embassy in Istanbul despatched an e mail to the State Division that was then forwarded to senior advisers to then-Vice President Joe Biden, the Obama White Home level man for a lot of overseas coverage crises…. State Division officers forwarded the knowledge to the vice chairman’s workplace, the place Biden aide Colin Kahl (now President Biden’s Undersecretrary of Protection for Coverage) despatched it to the non-public e mail account robinware456@gmail.com. It wasn’t simply any non-public account. It was one among three pseudonym accounts utilized by Joe Biden. Quickly after the then-vice president would ahead the knowledge to his globetrotting son Hunter Biden with the topic line ‘Fwd: Mr. O’Connor Being Launched from Detention in the present day…. Comer’s inquiry was prompted by an e mail quietly launched in January as a part of the Obama presidential archives. In it, a White Home staffer writes Joe Biden on a private pseudonym e mail account named Robert L. Peters a couple of deliberate name with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The staffer copied Hunter Biden’s e mail deal with at Rosemont Seneca Companions. On the time, Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian gasoline firm referred to as Burisma Holdings that was deemed to be corrupt by the Obama-Biden State Division. ‘Boss–8:45am prep for 9am cellphone name with Pres Poroshenko. Then we’re off to Rhode Island for infrastructure occasion after which Wilmington for UDel graduation,’ the staffer wrote the then-vice president. ‘Nate may have your draft remarks delivered later tonight or together with your press clips within the morning.’” • Hmm. 

* * *

Republican Funhouse

“The Rise of the Younger, Liberal, Nonwhite Republican?” [Eric Levitz, New York Magazine]. “In a brand new evaluation of survey knowledge, the New York Occasions maps the contours of the modern Republican citizens. A few of its findings give conservatives trigger for concern. The brand new GOP coalition has appreciable inner ideological tensions. The occasion now derives 12 % of its assist from a bunch that the paper dubs “blue-collar populists”: a largely northern, socially average, economically populist contingent whose attachment to Republican politics derives primarily from their rightwing views on race and immigration, and private affection for Donald Trump. Within the Electoral Faculty, this constituency punches above its weight, as it’s disproportionately concentrated within the Rust Belt’s battlegrounds. A majority of this group helps abortion rights and same-sex marriage. This aversion to bible-thumping moralism helped tie a section of those voters to the Democratic Get together earlier than Trump’s emergence. To the extent that the Supreme Court docket’s overturning of Roe v. Wade will increase the salience of reproductive rights, and Trump’s eventual exit from GOP politics weakens blue-collar populists’ emotional identification with the occasion, Republicans may lose floor with them. Certainly, in final yr’s midterm elections, Democrats carried out higher in closely blue-collar Midwest states like Michigan and Pennsylvania than they did nationally. However the New York Occasions-Siena Faculty ballot additionally provides Democrats some trigger for anxiousness. The survey means that nonwhite, working-class People are beginning to vote extra like their light-skinned friends. In 2020, nonwhite, non-college-educated voters backed Joe Biden over Trump by a 48-point margin. At present, this group backs by Biden by merely 16 factors, in accordance with the survey. This erosion within the Democrats’ assist amongst nonwhite voters leaves Biden and Trump tied at 43 % nationally.” • Perhaps it’s not factor to owe 600 bucks to “nonwhite voters”?

Democrats en Déshabillé

Affected person readers, it appears that evidently individuals are truly studying the back-dated submit! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are various updates. So I should try this. –lambert

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

The Democrat Get together is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Get together didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” in fact.) Second, all of the working components of the Get together reinforce one another. Depart apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Get together (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 belongings within the press and the intelligence group.

Observe, in fact, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is restricted 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.

* * *

“An Insurance coverage Coverage for Democrats” [Ruy Teixeira, The Liberal Patriot]. “States of Change simulations present that, all else equal, a robust white working class surge in 2024 would ship the election to the GOP. Even a small one may probably do the trick. In an all-else-equal context, I estimate only a one-point improve in Republican assist among the many white working class and a concomitant one-point lower in Democratic assist (for a 2-point margin swing) would ship Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin (and the election) to the Republicans. Make it a 2-point improve in GOP assist and you may throw in Pennsylvania too. So an insurance coverage coverage to forestall such a swing is so as. The issue: these are very sad voters.” Says the marketing consultant whose apply did greater than every other to allow Democrats to desert them. Be that as it might, Teixeria is a professional: “Whenever you take a look at the precise inhabitants of voters and the way racial resentment was distributed in 2016, as Grimmer and Marble did, it seems that the racial resentment rationalization merely doesn’t match what actually occurred when it comes to voter shifts. A rigorous accounting of vote shifts towards Trump exhibits as a substitute that they have been primarily amongst whites, particularly low schooling whites, with average views on race and immigration, not whites with excessive ranges of racial resentment. In truth, Trump truly netted fewer votes amongst whites with excessive ranges of racial resentment than Mitt Romney did in 2012… A lot for the racial resentment rationalization of Trump’s victory. Not solely is racial resentment a misnamed variable that doesn’t imply what individuals assume it means, it actually can’t account for the precise shifts that occurred within the 2016 election…. Such understanding was nowhere to be discovered, nonetheless, in Democratic ranks. The racism-and-xenophobia interpretation rapidly turned dominant, partly as a result of it was in some ways merely a continuation of the strategy Clinton had taken throughout her marketing campaign and that almost all Democrats accepted. Certainly, it turned so dominant that merely to query the interpretation reliably opened the questioner to accusations that she or he didn’t take the issue of racism critically sufficient. We’re nonetheless dwelling in that world…. Democrats desperately want that insurance coverage coverage for 2024 and eliminating these attitudes towards 40 % of the citizens (rather more in key states!) must be a part of it. Consider it as a down cost on the ‘de-Brahminization‘ of the Democratic Get together.” • I believe the Democrats are about as prone to take this well-meant recommendation as MSNBC is probably going to present Thomas Frank his personal present.

“Circulation of former Cuomo aide’s deposition units off firestorm” [Syracuse.com (Bob)]. ” Aides to former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo have been circulating a transcript of a deposition final month of Ana Liss-Jackson, who was one among 11 ladies listed in a searing 2021 state legal professional basic’s report that accused the previous governor of participating in a sample of sexual harassment and inappropriate office conduct…. Liss-Jackson famous that she had by no means accused Cuomo of sexual harassment however that she later believed his conduct, which included calling her ‘sweetheart,’ kissing her hand, touching her again and asking about her boyfriend, had been improper. ‘I don’t imagine that the governor, to be clear, sexually harassed me,’ Liss-Jackson mentioned final month. ‘It was on the heels of the ‘MeToo’ motion and there was a cultural shift round what was, and was not — what’s and what’s not — applicable conduct within the office.’ Liss-Jackson mentioned her intention in chatting with reporters two years in the past was to assist buttress the extra severe allegations being leveled in opposition to Cuomo by different ladies. However she additionally implied that the best way her story was reported within the Wall Road Journal and Gothamist had not been what she hoped to convey. She didn’t say these tales have been inaccurate, solely that they ‘didn’t totally, precisely characterize what I used to be making an attempt to get throughout’ and that in some information experiences her feedback have been ‘taken out of context.’” • Sure, what introduced Cuomo down was #MeToo — bear in mind them? — and never slaughtering hundreds of elders in nursing properties. It’s a humorous outdated world.

“Sen. Dianne Feinstein claims ‘monetary elder abuse’ in lawsuit over husband’s property” [NBC]. “Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is suing the trustees of a fund arrange by her late husband, accusing them of committing ‘monetary elder abuse’ by refusing to pay the tens of millions of {dollars} she’s due. The swimsuit was filed in San Francisco Superior Court docket final week by Feinstein’s daughter, Katherine Feinstein, who was given ‘a restricted sturdy energy of legal professional’ over her mom’s affairs in July.

Realignment and Legitimacy

#COVID19

“I’m in earnest — I cannot equivocate — I cannot excuse — I cannot retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

Sources, United States (Nationwide): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; contains many counties; Wastewater Scan, contains drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, however nationwide knowledge). “An infection Management, Emergency Administration, Security, and Basic Ideas” (particularly on hospitalization by metropolis).

Lambert right here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To replace any entry, do be happy to contact me on the deal with given with the crops. Please put “COVID” within the topic line. Thanks!

Sources, United States (Native): 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 experiences); 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).

Sources, Canada (Nationwide): Wastewater (Authorities of Canada).

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

Hat tricks to useful 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, sq. coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Utah, Bob White (3). 

Keep secure on the market!

Elite Maleficence

“The CDC Works to Overhaul Lab Operations After Covid Check Flop” [KFF Health News]. “An impartial panel of laboratory researchers, public well being and coverage specialists, and medical doctors say the CDC’s flawed diagnostic take a look at was one of many ‘most consequential’ of the company’s pandemic missteps as a result of it stymied nationwide efforts to include covid-19 because the illness unfold. They blame the take a look at’s shortcomings on a sequence of issues rooted in how the CDC operated its laboratories: an absence of unified management for the labs growing the take a look at; inadequate planning and high quality management programs for producing assessments for novel pathogens; and ineffective governance that generally positioned medical laboratory choices within the palms of ‘non-laboratory specialists’ with out diagnostic testing experience. The CDC says it’s working to handle its liabilities, utilizing the findings of that advisory committee as a information. It’s a giant job — one additional difficult by new management on the company, constrained assets, and continued antagonism and threatened price range cuts from members of Congress.” • Nonetheless ready for that report on CDC’s personal superspreading occasion…..

Case Knowledge

NOT UPDATED From BioBot wastewater knowledge, August 17:

Lambert right here: Completely satisfied recollections of tape-watching days! Closing in on a Trump-era surge degree; Biden’s, in fact, are greater. It will likely be attention-grabbing to see what occurs when faculties open up. I want to congratulate the Biden administration and the general public well being institution, the CDC particularly, for this monumental and unprecedented achievement. And a tip of the ol’ Water Cooler hat to the Nice Barrington goons, whose insurance policies have been adopted so assiduously! A curious reality: All of Biden’s peaks are greater than Trump’s peaks. Exhibits you what public well being can do when it’s firing on all eight cylinders! Musical interlude. NOTE I’m not blissful that Biobot can’t replace this knowledge extra steadily. 

Regional knowledge:

Backward revisions. Curiously, the upswing begins earlier than July 4, which neither accelerates nor retards it.

Regional variant knowledge, August 19:

EG.5 (the orange pie slice) nonetheless appears evenly distributed. Sadly, the Midwest knowledge shouldn’t be out there, so we will’t infer something in regards to the Midwest surge and any variant(s), somehow. 

Variants

NOT UPDATED From CDC, August 19:

Lambert right here: High of the leaderboard: EG.5 (“Eris“). I’m not highlighting the BA.2’s as a result of the interactive model exhibits that these BA.2’s been hanging round at a low degree for months.

From CDC, August 5:

Lambert right here: Unsure what to make of this. I’m used to seeing a brand new variant take down the beforehand dominant variant. Right here it appears to be like like we’ve got a “tag staff,” all working collectively to chop XBB.1.5 right down to measurement. I certain hope the volunteers doing Pangolin, on which this chart relies upon, don’t all transfer on the inexperienced fields and pastures new (or have their entry to services reduce by directors of unwell intent).

CDC: “As of Could 11, genomic surveillance knowledge will likely be reported biweekly, based mostly on the provision of constructive take a look at specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring each two weeks. 2. occurring twice per week; semiweekly.” Seems to be like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to fret about. Time will inform.

Covid Emergency Room Visits

NOT UPDATED From CDC NCIRD Surveillance, August 12:

Lambert right here: Improve is much more distinct. (The black line is “mixed”, however it’s simple to see that Covid, the pink line, is driving every little thing.)

NOTE “Charts and knowledge supplied by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the previous yr, utilizing a rolling 52-week interval.” So not your entire pandemic, FFS (the implicit message right here being that Covid is “similar to the flu,” which is why the seasonal “rolling 52-week interval” is acceptable for each_{MR SUBLIMINAL I hate these individuals a lot}. Discover additionally that this chart exhibits, a minimum of for its time interval, that Covid is not seasonal, despite the fact that CDC is making an attempt to get us to imagine that it’s, presumably to allow them to piggyback on the present institutional equipment for injections.

Hospitalization

I hate this metric as a result of the lag makes it misleading. Nonetheless, right here’s bellwether New York Metropolis, knowledge as of August 18:

Might be worse, and likely will likely be. However how a lot worse?

Positivity

Walgreens sh*ts the mattress, August 21:

First login display:

Second login display:

Now I want Github account to get Covid positivity knowledge? How does this make any sense? Musical interlude.

NOT UPDATED From CDC, July 31:

Lambert right here: That is the CDC’s “Traveler-Based mostly Genomic Surveillance” knowledge.

Deaths

NOT UPDATED Iowa COVID-19 Tracker, August 9:

Lambert right here: The WHO knowledge is nugatory, so I changed it with the Iowa Covid Knowledge Tracker. Their technique: “These knowledge have been sourced, by way of the API from the CDC: https://knowledge.cdc.gov/NCHS/Circumstances-Contributing-to-COVID-19-Deaths-by-Stat/hk9y-quqm. This visualization updates on Wednesday evenings. Knowledge are provisional and are adjusted weekly by the CDC.” I can’t appear to get a pop-up that exhibits a complete of the three causes (high proper). Readers?

Complete: 1,172,458 – 1,172,433 = 25 (25 * 365 = 9,125 deaths per yr, in the present day’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “dwelling with” Covid (fairly a bit greater than the minimizers would really like, although they’ll discuss themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I could need to resolve that is what the powers-that-be think about “mission achieved” for this explicit tranche of dying and illness). 

Extra Deaths

The Economist, August 18:

Lambert right here:  Again to nearly dailiy. Odd when it’s, odd when it stops. Based mostly on a machine-learning mannequin. (The CDC has an extra estimate too, however because it ran perpetually with an enormous typo within the Legend, I figured no person was actually it, so I received rid it. )

Stats Watch

There are not any official statistics of curiosity in the present day.

At present’s Concern & Greed Index: 45 Concern (earlier shut: 69 Greed) [CNN]. One week in the past: 63 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Aug 21 at 12:31 PM ET. Mr. Market remains to be chewing his palms.

Rapture Index: Closes up one on Date Settings. “There’s a rising curiosity within the rapture occurring on one of many Jewish fall feasts” [Rapture Ready]. File Excessive, October 10, 2016: 189. Present: 185. (Do not forget that bringing on the Rapture is good.) Oh, swell. Bibi provides Huge Z some nukes, hilarity ensues. NOTE on #42 Plagues: “The coronavirus pandemic has maxed out this class.” Extra trustworthy than most! 

Class Warfare

“Well being care CEOs hauled in $4 billion final yr as inflation pinched employees, evaluation exhibits” [STAT]. “The well being care business didn’t simply present a secure haven for jittery inventory traders in 2022, a yr outlined by inflation and better rates of interest. It additionally supplied a secure stream of wealth for high executives, who collectively pocketed billions of {dollars} in what was in any other case a tough patch for the economic system. By nearly each measure, 2022 was a foul yr for the inventory market. However well being care shares fell considerably lower than different firms as the quantity of care obtained and prescriptions stuffed returned nearer to pre-pandemic norms. In consequence, the CEOs of greater than 300 publicly traded well being care firms mixed to make $4 billion in 2022, in accordance with a STAT evaluation of economic filings. That sum of money may purchase Costco memberships for greater than 66 million individuals, and it’s equal to your entire financial output of Sierra Leone. That CEO haul was down 11% from the $4.5 billion recorded in 2021. However the sizable paydays spotlight how each area of interest of well being care — from Covid-19 vaccines and obscure know-how to orthopedic implants and offering protection to the nation’s poor — continued to produce its leaders with substantial sums of cash whilst extra individuals struggled to afford meals, housing, and, sure, well being care. ‘Irrespective of the way you slice it, the individuals on the high — the CEOs of those firms — are making monumental features yearly in comparison with peculiar People,’ mentioned John McDonough, a well being coverage professor at Harvard who has studied well being look after practically 4 a long time. ‘That is the bitter fruit that we [who?] reap from telling the well being care business to behave extra like a enterprise.’” • One reaps grain, not fruit. What the heck are they doing at Harvard as of late? And who’s “we”? At all times a query that solutions itself, as soon as requested.

Information of the Wired

Periodically, recommendation columnist Ann Landers would run a letter that was the Nineteen Fifties – Nineteen Sixties equal of clickbait: The query of which manner rest room paper must be hung: Excessive of the roll, or not? Passionate dialogue ensued. So herewith:

Though maybe the message isn’t solely about rubbish luggage?

Contact data for crops: Readers, be happy to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn the way to ship me a test if you’re allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn the way to ship me photos of crops. Greens are advantageous! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary crops! If you’d like your deal with to seem as a credit score, please place it firstly of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize by utilizing your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From RM:

RM writes: “I used to be doing pleased with all of the bushes and flowers in bloom, however WOW, when the grasses kicked off, my eyes nearly shut down.” I put up the Cezanne and the Van Gogh the opposite day as a result of they jogged my memory of RM.

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not coated by the annual NC fundraiser. So when you see a hyperlink you particularly like, or an merchandise you wouldn’t see anyplace else, please don’t hesitate to specific your appreciation in tangible type. Bear in mind, a tip jar is for tipping! Common constructive suggestions each makes me really feel good and lets me know I’m heading in the right direction with protection. Once I get no donations for 5 or ten days I get apprehensive. Extra tangibly, a relentless trickle of donations helps me with bills, and I consider that trickle when setting fundraising targets:

Right here is the display that can seem, which I’ve helpfully annotated:

For those who hate PayPal, you possibly can e mail me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I offers you instructions on easy methods to ship a test. Thanks!