2:00PM Water Cooler 9/22/2023 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Chicken Music of the Day

Mrs. Moreau’s Warbler, -6.37335, 36.92794, Morogoro, Tanzania.

Politics

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

Biden Administration

“Biden tells Zelenskyy that U.S. will ship Ukraine ATACMS long-range missiles” [NBC]. “President Joe Biden has informed his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that america will present a small variety of long-range missiles to help the conflict with Russia, three U.S. officers and a congressional official acquainted with the discussions informed NBC Information on Friday. The officers, who weren’t approved to talk publicly, didn’t say when the missiles could be delivered or when a public announcement could be made…. Protection officers have mentioned the U.S. doesn’t have a big stockpile of extra ATACMS, which have a much bigger payload than conventional artillery, to offer to Ukraine.”

2024

Time for the Countdown Clock!

* * *

“Trump says he at all times had autoworkers’ backs. Union leaders say his first-term file exhibits in any other case” [Associated Press]. “Trump will bypass the second Republican presidential debate on Sept. 27 to as a substitute go to putting autoworkers in Michigan, the place he has regarded to place himself as an ally of blue-collar staff by promising to lift wages and defend jobs if elected to a second time period. However union leaders say Trump’s file within the White Home speaks for itself. Union leaders have mentioned his first time period was removed from worker-friendly, citing unfavorable rulings from the nation’s high labor board and the U.S. Supreme Court docket, in addition to unfulfilled guarantees of automotive jobs. Whereas the United Auto Employees union has withheld an endorsement within the 2024 presidential race, its management has repeatedly rebuffed Trump. Nonetheless, Trump plans to talk on to a room of former and present union members. A Trump marketing campaign radio advert launched Tuesday in Detroit and Toledo, Ohio, praised auto staff and mentioned the previous president has ‘at all times had their again.’” • Effectively, at the very least Trump’s exhibiting up (precisely as in East Palestine).

IA: “Iowa May Open Up the 2024 GOP Major” [Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal]. “It’s starting to daybreak on Donald Trump that Iowa issues. Till now it regarded as if the previous president was devoting extra time to assembly with attorneys than participating with voters, so his current burst of exercise within the Hawkeye State is revealing. His notoriously low-cost marketing campaign dropped $700,000 on Iowa TV final week. He lastly employed a director to supervise his Iowa floor sport. On Wednesday he stopped in Maquoketa and Dubuque, and he vows to return to the state 4 instances in October. That signifies that over the following six weeks he’ll spend about as many days in Iowa as he has over the previous 9 months…. Mr. Trump’s rivals, unburdened by a number of legal indictments, are making up of their quantity of appearances in early states what Mr. Trump will get together with his rare rallies. Final Saturday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had six occasions in Iowa whereas former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley had eight stops there throughout Friday and Saturday… In the present day, the previous president has an enormous lead in nationwide GOP main polls. However beware: Republican main voters don’t like being taken as a right. Proper now that’s what Mr. Trump and his crew are doing. Voters know tips on how to register their unhappiness.” • Rove factors to the opportunity of a “stunning second” in Iowa, as with Mondale and Hart in 1984 (although absolutely the shock is manufactured by the press?). That might imply a protracted drawn-out marketing campaign.

* * *

Whoops:

Sacks was massive DeSantis man and helped launch his presidential marketing campaign on Twitter Areas https://t.co/jrK2i7CVyh

— Matt Dixon (@Mdixon55) September 21, 2023

* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *

MB

The blokes at Due Dissidence rightly name out Peter Daou for not hiring a videographer for the most important speech that Cornel West could have the chance to present. Not solely that, he didn’t even seize your entire factor on his personal cellular phone — only a fraction of it.

A lot in your chilly blooded skilled.

* * *

Republican Funhouse

“Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Community Donor Occasions” [Pro Publica]. “Throughout [the annual winter donor summit of the Koch network], the [Justice Thomas] went to a personal dinner for the community’s donors. Thomas has attended Koch donor occasions at the very least twice over time, in accordance with interviews with three former community staff and one main donor. The justice was introduced in to talk, staffers mentioned, within the hopes that such entry would encourage donors to proceed giving. . …. Thomas’ involvement within the occasions is a part of a yearslong, private relationship with the Koch brothers that has remained nearly solely out of public view. It developed over years of journeys to the Bohemian Grove, a secretive all-men’s retreat in Northern California. Thomas has been a daily on the Grove for twenty years, the place he stayed in a small camp with actual property billionaire Harlan Crow and the Kochs, in accordance with information and individuals who’ve frolicked with him there…. ‘I can’t think about — it takes my breath away, frankly — that he would go to a Koch community occasion for donors,’ mentioned John E. Jones III, a retired federal decide appointed by President George W. Bush. Jones mentioned that if he had gone to a Koch summit as a district courtroom decide, ‘I’d have gotten a letter that will’ve commenced a disciplinary continuing.’ ‘What you’re seeing is a sluggish creep towards unethical habits. Do it if you may get away with it,’ Jones mentioned.’”

“The Billionaire Maintaining TikTok on Telephones within the U.S.” [Wall Street Journal]. “TikTok had hardly any associates in authorities earlier this yr because the Biden administration, Congress and state legislatures had been threatening to ban the Chinese language-owned video large. TikTok now has many extra associates, with one thing in widespread: backing from billionaire financier Jeff Yass. They’ve helped stall makes an attempt to outlaw America’s most-downloaded app. Yass’s funding firm, Susquehanna Worldwide Group, wager massive on TikTok in 2012, shopping for a stake in guardian firm ByteDance now measured at about 15%. That interprets into a private stake for Yass of seven% in ByteDance. It’s price roughly $21 billion primarily based on the corporate’s current valuation, or a lot of his $28 billion internet price as gauged by Bloomberg. Yass can also be one of many high donors to the Membership for Progress, an influential conservative group that rallied Republican opposition to a TikTok ban. Yass has donated $61 million to the Membership for Progress’s political-spending arm since 2010, or about 24% of its complete, in accordance with federal information. Membership for Progress made public its opposition to banning TikTok in March, in an opinion article by its president, at a time when sentiment towards the platform amongst segments of each events was operating excessive on Capitol Hill. Days later, Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) stood up on the Senate flooring and quashed an try to fast-track a invoice by Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) to ban downloading of the TikTok app….. In June, Yass donated $3 million to a political committee backing Paul. Together with that contribution, Yass and his spouse, Janine Yass, have donated greater than $24 million to Paul or committees that help him since 2015, in accordance with federal information. Membership for Progress has given a Paul-supporting political committee $1.8 million since 2020.” • That’s good.

“Who’s Bankrolling the Shutdown Showdown?” [Exposed by CMD]. “The ‘No Security, No Funding‘ framework utilized by the Freedom Caucus for its calls for is echoed in supplies being circulated by right-wing teams together with the Conservative Partnership Institute (or CPI, which successfully gives staffing for the Freedom Caucus), the secretive Council for Nationwide Coverage’s Conservative Motion Undertaking, the America First Coverage Institute, the Heritage Basis, Membership for Progress, the Aggressive Enterprise Institute, the Household Analysis Council, and the Eagle Discussion board, all of that are pushing for a authorities shutdown except their ideological calls for are met. Though these teams’ arguments deal with reigning in authorities spending, their calls for have hardly something to do with the federal finances since they’re all primarily based on tradition conflict priorities. For instance, a current letter circulated by the Conservative Motion Undertaking and signed by greater than 100 people — together with representatives from the teams talked about above — contends that any spending invoice should embody coverage reforms that will ‘cease the woke most cancers that has contaminated the Pentagon.’” • Which is cray cray, as a result of most cancers isn’t infectious. Anyhow, if “woke” was the knee-jerking barnburner these guys assume it’s, DeSantis wouldn’t be shopping for new lifts for his exhibits. Stale, flat, unprofitable…..  

Democrats en Déshabillé

Affected person readers, evidently individuals are really 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 Social gathering (“the Democrat Social gathering 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 “reside” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Social gathering is, in actual fact, 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 Social gathering is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Social gathering didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” after all.) Second, all of the working elements of the Social gathering reinforce one another. Depart apart characterizing the relationships between parts of the Social gathering (ka-ching, however not solely) these parts 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 group.

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

* * *

“Sen. Menendez, spouse indicted on bribe costs as probe finds $100,000 in gold bars, prosecutors say” [Associated Press]. “The sweeping indictment alleges that Menendez, chairman of the Senate Overseas Relations Committee, offered delicate and personal U.S. authorities data to Egyptian authorities officers and took different steps to secretly assist Egypt, together with ghost-writing a letter on behalf of Egypt pushing different senators to elevate a maintain on $300 million in assist to the nation. Authorities additionally allege the senator sought to derail a legal investigation into an affiliate by pushing for a U.S. legal professional nominee he believed might be influenced. A search of the couple’s dwelling turned up $100,000 in gold bars and $480,000 in hidden money, mentioned prosecutors, who introduced the fees towards the 69-year-old Democrat practically six years after an earlier legal case towards him ended with a deadlocked jury. The newest indictment is unrelated to the sooner costs that alleged Menendez accepted lavish presents to strain authorities officers on behalf of a Florida physician.” • Commentary:

Wowzers. This Bob Menendez indictment contains gold bars, textual content messages, money hanging in closets. It is type of nostalgic, really, harkens again to a extra harmless time when politicians took bribes as a substitute of getting bullshit kids’s ebook contracts. https://t.co/XFSSptC1OI

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) September 22, 2023

Appropriate!

* * *

“A corruption trial revealed a #MeToo ethics entanglement for a high Biden adviser” [NPR]. From Septembr 13, nonetheless germane. “A high adviser to President Joe Biden, whose outstanding communications agency helped launch a high-profile effort to help victims of sexual harassment, rape and assault, was additionally a paid adviser to a robust Illinois politician whereas he was being sued by a type of victims. Anita Dunn, co-founder of the communications agency SKDK and broadly thought of a member of the president’s internal circle, offered “disaster communications” help to Michael Madigan, the then-Speaker of the Illinois Home of Representatives, from 2018 to 2019. That work netted Dunn and her agency greater than $200,000, in accordance with marketing campaign finance disclosures. Whereas Dunn was advising Madigan, Hampton obtained help in her case from Dunn’s agency, which partnered with the anti-harassment charity the Time’s Up Authorized Protection Fund. Dunn’s work for Madigan was particularly targeted on responding to allegations stemming from Hampton’s lawsuit. Consequently, SKDK (the D stands for “Dunn”) was on the one hand supporting Hampton in her harassment and retaliation case by means of its partnership with the Time’s Up Authorized Protection Fund, and on the opposite getting paid by a defendant in that very lawsuit. Reached by cellphone, Dunn mentioned she was heading into a gathering and informed NPR to ‘simply name SKDK on that, thanks,’ earlier than hanging up…. NPR requested for a duplicate of SKDK’s battle of curiosity coverage, however the agency declined to offer it.” • Good reporting by NPR and properly price a learn for the horrid element, although if Dunn had been a Republican the welkin would nonetheless be ringing with the cries of aghastitude.

“Democrats drop PR agency co-founded by high Biden adviser over ‘disqualifying’ #MeToo battle” [FOX]. “Illinois Home Democrats have dropped a high communications agency co-founded by a member of President Biden’s internal circle after it was revealed it raked in $200,000 offering counsel to a Democratic marketing campaign going through sexual harassment costs whereas additionally positioning itself as a frontrunner within the #MeToo motion. ‘The obvious battle of curiosity and conduct on this case sends a chilling message to victims and survivors that they will’t even belief the individuals who declare to be their best supporters,’ Emanuel ‘Chris’ Welch, the speaker of the Illinois Home of Representatives, mentioned Monday in a press release to NPR. ‘We discover this to be deeply disheartening and disqualifying for us,’” • FOX quoting NPR. What is that this world coming to! (And it’s attention-grabbing that NPR felt free to take a pot shot at an vital determine in BidenWorld.)

The Bush Legacy

Our Famously Free Press

RussiaGate

Roe v. Wade

Trucker Convoys

2018 Submit Mortem

Truckers

2016 Submit Mortem

Reparations

9/11

Election Legitimacy

Covid

The Debate

Riots and Protests

The Debates

–>

#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 information). “An infection Management, Emergency Administration, Security, and Common Ideas” (particularly on hospitalization by metropolis).

Lambert right here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To replace any entry, do be at liberty 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 stories); 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 protected on the market!

Maskstravaganza

Science fiction stuff!

If solely there have been some easy, low value means of stopping infections. Like some type of mechanical system that would block inhalation of virus

— joseph.vipond@ucalgary.ca (@jvipondmd) September 21, 2023

Yesterday, hair. In the present day, beards:

I received a question from @xacc475013 about how lengthy stubble must be earlier than it begins to compromise the match of a respirator. The reply is on this paper. You want about 3 mm of beard size earlier than you begin seeing a significant drop within the match issue. There’s a minor drop at 1.5 mm… https://t.co/fXuCwwSBGw

— Dr Satoshi Akima FRACP 『秋間聰』 (@ToshiAkima) September 21, 2023

Covid is Airborne

Excellent news (1):

Tutorial: The right way to make your individual air cleaner at dwelling to guard towards fall viruses

“As COVID circumstances surge and flu season approaches, Louie Gold demonstrates tips on how to create a DIY air cleaner”https://t.co/teyDjHAJKg

HT @Don_Milton

— Prof. Jose-Luis Jimenez (@jljcolorado) September 21, 2023

This might even have been, as I’ve grumbled earlier than, been executed a yr in the past at the very least, say by Dr. Jill Biden and a few cute schoolkids on Oprah or Good Morning America. 

Excellent news (2):

Decreasing inhalation dose or virus-laden respiratory aerosol particles results in decrease chance of an infection.

It is at all times been that means. It is by no means been rocket science, people. 👇 https://t.co/hbrMYBK1pp

— Richard Corsi, PhD, PE (Texas) (@CorsIAQ) September 22, 2023

* * *

CSA = Canadian Requirements Group; LTC = Lengthy-Time period Care:

Deleted this submit and correcting.

There’s a small reference to air flow within the LTC normal. Nothing too detailed. Whole of 1 web page.

There’s 3 pages available washing and seven pages on floor disinfection.

It could be good in the event that they paid the identical consideration to air. pic.twitter.com/XqQklrHB3h

— Joey Fox (@joeyfox85) September 21, 2023

And the sociology of standards-writing:

That is why selective Gatekeeping in Requirements Committees, whether or not it is CSA, CDC, WHO or comparable can have such a devastating affect on society.

— Barry Hunt – #DavosSafe (@BarryHunt008) September 21, 2023

Feels like HICPAC…. (I ran this tweet yesterday as a result of it was attention-grabbing in itself, however the tweet was in response to Fox, who at press time had deleted his tweet, changing it later with the tweet above.)

* * *

Vaccines

Seems to be like there’s demand?

An indication at a Walgreens in San Francisco. That is intimidating and can solely flip individuals who wish to get vaccinated away.

There is a CDC Bridge program that helps everybody get the up to date COVID vaccine without spending a dime, but is not talked about within the signal.

(Photograph by @arielwaldman) pic.twitter.com/eTPsoKaKOI

— Dr. Fortunate Tran (@luckytran) September 22, 2023

“Spikevax,” although. That’s just a little too on-the-nose for me. 

Testing and Monitoring

Can any New York readers verify or deny this idiocy?

I’m required to ship a letter to each single household each time there’s a case of lice in my class.

NYC principals are being informed to not inform college households if there are covid circumstances of their kids’s class or college outbreaks.

Lice have by no means killed or disabled a baby.

— Sarah Allen (@Mssarahmssarah) September 22, 2023

Right here’s a cheerful thought!

Citizen Science: The 💩 🐀 problem!

What if a lot of folks did a RAT (Covid Speedy Antigen Check) on their poo?

Are you shedding SARS² virus out of your digestive tract? Discover out! Do a 🐀 in your 💩!

From Novid to Lengthy Covid, everybody can be part of on this Citizen Science survey! 👇 pic.twitter.com/hqzArsgVbA

— Pedro Lérias 😷 rplerias.bsky.social (@RPLerias) July 19, 2023

However I suppose if you wish to discover out should you’re nonetheless shedding — or discover out of you have got a Covid reservoir someplace in your physique? — this can be a good technique.

Elite Maleficence

Readers, have any of you gotten reactions like this?

The pushback is rarely really concerning the specifics of what I am saying.

It is as if these people are reacting to the broader narrative round COVID really being dangerous for you, and as if they’re personally offended by the very existence of public well being itself. (2/4)

— Nick Tsergas (@nicktsergas) September 22, 2023

I can perceive a destructive response to “public well being” as practiced. However to the very thought? A second instance:

and there you go. https://t.co/f5GNtDYmLp

— joseph.vipond@ucalgary.ca (@jvipondmd) September 21, 2023

Solely Belgium. However the EU permits this?

Case Information

NOT UPDATED From BioBot wastewater information, September 18:

Lambert right here: “Information final up to date September 18, 2023 from samples collected throughout the week of September 11, 2023. This Thursday’s replace is delayed. Visualizations are subsequent anticipated to be up to date on September 25, 2023. Most up-to-date information are topic to alter.” So even wastewater information is popping to rubbish? (I checked CDC information, and it was up to date on September 18, too? Funding points? Everyone utilizing the identical lab behind the scenes, and there was a debacle of some variety?)=

Lambert right here: The nationwide drop is due solely to the South. Different alerts — scattered and partial although they be — additionally converge on a drop: ER visits, positivity. We will see. (I would come with CDC’s wastewater map for comparability, but it surely’s eleven days previous.)

Regional information:

The identical regional variation additionally seems within the Walgreen’s positivity information. Curiously, the upswing begins earlier than July 4, which neither accelerates nor retards it.

• One in all our greatest indicators, The Yankee Candle Index:

There’s an actual disconnect between official (CDC) and quasi-official (Biobot) information, and anecdotes like this, and anecdotes typically (particularly from dad and mom). It’s making me just a little queasy, though I grant I’m simply queased. Then once more, would we have now all these euphemisms if there have been nothing to euphemize?

Variants                  

NOT UPDATED From CDC, September 16:

Lambert right here: Prime of the leaderboard: EG.5 (“Eris“). Nonetheless BA.2.86 right here, not even within the word, however see beneath at Positivity.

From CDC, September 2:

Lambert right here: Undecided what to make of this. I’m used to seeing a brand new variant take down the beforehand dominant variant. Right here it seems like we have now a “tag crew,” 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 amenities reduce by directors of sick intent).

CDC: “As of Could 11, genomic surveillance information can be reported biweekly, primarily based on the provision of optimistic check specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring each two weeks. 2. occurring twice every 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, September 16:

Drop coinciding with wastewater drop.

NOTE “Charts and information offered 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 “identical to the flu,” which is why the seasonal “rolling 52-week interval” is suitable for each_{MR SUBLIMINAL I hate these folks a lot}. Discover additionally that this chart exhibits, at the very least for its time interval, that Covid is not seasonal, though 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

Bellwether New York Metropolis, information as of September 21:

Flattened peak continues. I hate this metric as a result of the lag makes it misleading.

Right here’s a special CDC visualization on hospitalization, nationwide, not by state, however with a date, at the very least. September 16:

Lambert right here:  At the least we will see that positivity and hospitalization correlate.

Lambert right here: “Maps, charts, and information offered by CDC, updates weekly for the earlier MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Division Visits, Check Positivity) and weekly the next Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”. So the place the heck is the replace, CDC? 

Positivity

NOT UPDATED From Walgreens, September 18:                                                                                       

-8.3%. An unlimited drop (so not Labor Day information). Nonetheless, I can’t recall seeing the map so polarized; a lot deep inexperienced, a lot deep purple. Absolutely the numbers are nonetheless very small relative to June 2022, say. Curiously, these don’t correlate with the regional figures for wastewater. (It could be attention-grabbing to survey this inhabitants typically; these are individuals who, regardless of a tsunami of official propaganda and large peer strain, went and received examined anyhow.)

NOT UPDATED Cleveland Clinic, September 16:

Lambert right here: I do know that is simply Ohio, however the Cleveland Clinic is sweet*, and we’re starved for information, so…. NOTE * Even when hospital an infection management is making an attempt to kill sufferers by eliminating common masking with N95s.

From CDC, traveler’s information, September 4:

Again up once more And listed below are the variants:

No BA.2.86 for 3 of the long-delayed assortment weeks. We all know BA.2.86 is within the nation, so apparently it escaped CDC’s internet.

Deaths

Iowa COVID-19 Tracker, September 20:

Lambert right here: The WHO information is nugatory, so I changed it with the Iowa Covid Information Tracker. Their technique: “These information have been sourced, through the API from the CDC: https://information.cdc.gov/NCHS/Situations-Contributing-to-COVID-19-Deaths-by-Stat/hk9y-quqm. This visualization updates on Wednesday evenings. Information 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?

Whole: 1,175,562  – 1,175,495 = 67 (67 * 365 = 24,455 deaths per yr, right now’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “dwelling with” Covid (fairly a bit larger than the minimizers would really like, although they will speak themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I could should resolve that is what the powers-that-be contemplate “mission achieved” for this specific tranche of demise and illness). 

Extra Deaths

The Economist, September 21:

Lambert right here: That is now being up to date each day once more. Odd. Primarily based on a machine-learning mannequin.

Stats Watch

There are not any official statistics of curiosity right now.

Actual Property:  “W.P. Carey Exits Workplace Market as Demand Sinks Due to ‘Work-From-House’ Development” [Investopedia (ChrisFromGA)]. “The collapse in demand for business workplace house after the pandemic-related rise in “work at home” (WFH) has led W.P. Carey (WPC) to exit that enterprise section. The true property investor introduced that its board has unanimously agreed to exit the market by spinning off or promoting all of the workplace property in its portfolio.” • Hmm.

Tech: “Apple fucked us on proper to restore (once more)” [Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic]. “Proper to restore has no cannier, extra devoted adversary than Apple, an organization whose most progressive work is dreaming up new methods to sneakily sabotage electronics restore whereas claiming to be a caring environmental steward, a lie that covers up the mountains of e-waste that Apple dooms our descendants to wade by means of….. Tim Prepare dinner laid it out for his buyers: when folks can restore their gadgets, they don’t purchase new ones. When folks don’t purchase new gadgets, Apple doesn’t promote them new gadgets. It’s that’s easy…. VIN-locking is utilized by automakers to dam impartial mechanics from repairing your automobile; even when they use the producer’s personal elements, the elements and the engine will refuse to work collectively till the producer’s rep keys within the unlock code.” • Effectively price a learn, since everyone’s VIN-locking. 

Leisure: “WWE founder Vince McMahon units the stage for his doable exit” [Axios]. “Professional wrestling magnate Vince McMahon is hinting that he needs out of the household enterprise, in accordance with regulatory filings tied to WWE’s current merger with the UFC. The brand new mixed entity, TKO, has registered all of McMahon’s shares on the market, thus enabling him to keep away from the lockup interval that applies to different TKO stockholders like Endeavor and Silver Lake. McMahon at the moment holds round 28.84 million TKO shares, which was valued at $3 billion as of yesterday’s market shut.” • Not too shabbby.

Antitrust:

In the present day’s Concern & Greed Index: 41 Concern (earlier shut: 39 Concern) [CNN]. One week in the past: 49 (Impartial). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Sep 22 at 1:37:25 PM ET.

The Conservatory

“‘Cease Making Sense’ and the Transformative Energy of Collaboration” [The New Yorker]. “It’s now having a theatrical rerelease, in a brand new restoration.” Terrific on the massive display:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVHNwBbkSj4

A propos!

Black Injustice Tipping Level

“‘Inquiry’ launched into Ibram X. Kendi’s Heart for Antiracist Analysis at BU” [Boston Globe]. “Boston College mentioned it’s conducting an ‘inquiry’ into celeb writer Ibram X. Kendi’s Heart for Antiracist Analysis after receiving complaints concerning the heart’s tradition and grant administration. The announcement trails information of current layoffs on the heart, which launched in June 2020 amid the racial justice protests that adopted the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. Saida Grundy, a BU professor who labored on the heart from fall 2020 to spring 2021, despatched an e mail to then-provost Jean Morrison in December 2021 alleging dysfunction and a “”sample of amassing grants with none dedication to producing the analysis obligated”” by them, in accordance with The Boston Globe.” 

Class Warfare

“UAW Strikes at Extra GM and Stellantis Websites, However Spares Ford” [Wall Street Journal]. “The United Auto Employees union on Friday despatched one other 5,600 members out on strike at Common Motors GM and Chrysler-parent Stellantis, widening the affect of its work stoppage and lengthening it to parts-distribution facilities that provide dealerships. The union spared Ford from extra walkouts, saying it was making progress in contract talks with the automaker. UAW President Shawn Fain informed members throughout a livestream deal with Friday morning that the motion targets 38 parts-distribution facilities throughout 20 states. The transfer brings the variety of UAW members on strike to greater than 18,000. The distribution amenities ship service elements to dealerships. Crimping the circulate of elements from the facilities is prone to disrupt GM and Stellantis sellers’ service operations, doubtlessly resulting in longer wait instances for purchasers. Fain mentioned Ford had sweetened its provide in current days, and the union needed to acknowledge that the corporate was critical about reaching a deal…. In 2019, when the UAW went on strike throughout all of GM’s U.S. amenities, the cutoff of service elements to dealerships started affecting shops inside every week. Sellers struggled to get backup elements. Many mentioned they needed to flip away service clients.”

“Blue-collar staff are our solely hope” [Unherd]. “AI’s issues begin on the high. In contrast to the web, which spawned various impartial corporations (together with Google and Microsoft), AI appears to be managed by current tech giants, that are investing closely in these new corporations. ARM, for example, the British-based chip designer whose IPO final week set Wall Avenue aflutter, is garnering enormous investments from different Huge Tech corporations, together with Nvidia, Intel, AMD and Apple. Elsewhere, Open AI’s largest investor is Microsoft, whereas DeepMind was acquired by Google in 2014…. In accordance with the US Labor Division, AI and automation might affect as many as many as 90 million American staff, with warehouse staff among the many most outstanding losers. What is going to actually alter class relations, nonetheless, is the affect on extra skilled jobs. They’ve been the ascendent class for the final two generations, rising at a median annual price of two.2% since 2001 — properly above the 0.4% annual rise for complete employment. However whereas the pc revolution was a boon to these working as programmers and market researchers, AI does the job for them, typically with extra velocity and accuracy. As Rony Abovitz, one of many pioneers of digital actuality and AI, has noticed: “”It’s the tip of the white-collar information work.”” In such a world, it’s not arduous to envisage a brand new type of class battle that extends past the normal Marxist battle between low-wage staff and better-educated house owners.” • No, it’s precisely the normal Marxist battle between capital (patrons of labor energy) and staff (sellers of labor energy). AI, in principle, would cut back the PMC to employee standing by eliminating their symbolic capital (credentials, convention displays, awards, and so forth.) and their social capital (FlexNets). After all, AI actually is bullshit and actually does suck, so such a transition wouldn’t be common. However that’s the concept. Similar “battle” in additional technical — and in my thoughts, much less supple — phrases:

“Marxism & Class” [MR Online]. “Class is a key idea for Marxism. The phrase has many makes use of as a time period of differentiation and stratification. In social-political-economic phrases, it’s a means of categorising social teams when it comes to wealth, standing, training, occupation, and tradition, typically in a really unfastened and considerably shoddy means, when it’s addressed in any respect. For Marxism, it’s a extra exact idea and one that’s central to its complete evaluation of society. So what’s class for Marxism and the way is it completely different from different approaches? Principally, Marxism sees class when it comes to relationship to the technique of manufacturing. In capitalist society, there are two main lessons: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat—those that personal the technique of manufacturing and those that depend upon wage labour to reside. Inside these lessons, there are numerous strata and different variations, however the nice divide is between those that do the work of the world and those that are capable of acceptable the fruits of their work, who can extract the excess worth of labour with out labouring. I’m assuming a broad definition of who’s the working class right here, together with not solely the prototypical proletarian, a male guide labourer, however all who work by hand or mind, those that make the world as we all know it occur, those that reside by their labour, whether or not plumbers or pilots or professors, whether or not they construct homes, stack cabinets, carry out surgical procedure, or pursue scientific analysis, of all genders, races, ethnicities, and nations, the various who’re manipulated into serving the pursuits of the few.” • Some points: (1) Marx, within the single web page (!!) last chapter of Capital Quantity III identifies at the very least 4:

There are three nice social teams whose members, the people forming them, reside on [(1) working class], revenue [(2) bourgieosie] and ground-rent [(3) rentiers] respectively, on the realisation of their labour-power, their capital, and their landed property.

Nonetheless, from this standpoint, physicians and officers, e.g., [(4) PMC].would additionally represent two lessons, for they belong to 2 distinct social teams, the members of every of those teams receiving their income from one and the identical supply. The identical would even be true of the infinite fragmentation of curiosity and rank into which the division of social labour splits labourers in addition to capitalists and landlords-the latter, e.g., into house owners of vineyards, farm house owners, house owners of forests, mine house owners and house owners of fisheries.

(In traditional “proof too small to be contained within the margin,” the ultimate sentence reads “[Here the manuscript breaks off.]”) (2) I’m strongly in favor of including social and symbolic capital to the combination, a la Bourdieu, as a result of in any other case there’s no option to give an account of the workings of propaganda and delusion (in addition to love, filiality, piety, and so forth.). Bourdiue remarks someplace that “sociology is a martial artwork,” and I feel the [M|m]arxists might use some new strikes that don’t sacrifice analytical rigor.

“Sen. Fetterman, the Senate gown code, and Conspicuous Consumption” [Real Economics]. “[T]here’s a college of American economics, known as the institutionlists, centered on the work and writings of maybe the most important gadfly ever amongst American skilled economists, Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929). Veblen is legendary for coining the phrase “”conspicuous consumption.”” It was the title of the fourth chapter of his 1899 ebook, The Concept of the Leisure Class. The title of Chapter Seven in that ebook is, “”Costume as an Expression of the Pecuniary Tradition,”” and it’s right here that Veblen explains how the Leisure Class — mainly, the wealthy and their hangers on, and the assorted elites of the completely different elements of society — creates and enforces requirements of style and tradition (the pecuniary tradition) that reinforces and perpetuates their dominant function in society. Fairly merely, elites gown in such a means as to clarify they don’t have to do any work as a way to exist. This signifies their standing, place, wealth, and energy as superior to everybody else.  So, the working and decrease lessons are anticipated to put on hoodies and shorts. Senators, Congresspeople, bankers, attorneys, and so forth, are anticipated to put on fits, rattling it. You do wish to slot in, don’t you?” • To me, Veblen is anticipating Bourdieu (who additionally has quite a bit to say about style and its formation). Fetterman’s Carhartts are usually not solely a type of symbolic capital, they’re an assault on different types of symbolic capital, trying to devalue them; see dialogue of Manet’s Olympia yesterday.

Information of the Wired

“Cash Is Pouring Into AI. Skeptics Say It’s a ‘Grift Shift.” [Institutional Investor]. “Coming off the worst yr in current historical past for enterprise capitalists, non-public market gamers like Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue Administration, Tiger World, Sequoia Capital, and Softbank rapidly redirected their {dollars} to AI upstarts. In the meantime, the inventory costs of the massive tech names suspected to be the most important beneficiaries of this often-called “”revolutionary”” type of synthetic intelligence have skyrocketed. The 2022 tech downturn turned a faint reminiscence as some 5 tech corporations — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia — accounted for the lion’s share of the inventory market’s outstanding comeback this yr, with the S&P 500 rising 20 % by means of July. Nvidia, maker of the superfast chips that switched from powering bitcoin mining to creating generative AI doable, has gained greater than 250 % to this point in 2023, making it the S&P index’s high gainer…. Orso Companions co-founder Nate Koppikar, who can also be quick Utilized Digital, has a time period for what he sees happening. He calls the phenomenon “”the grift shift”” — arguing that corporations and enterprise capital funds have pivoted from their shedding crypto and tech bets to money in on the AI second.” • “Grift shift” is a keeper, which might appear to have extensive software.

Contact data for crops: Readers, be at liberty to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn the way to ship me a verify in case you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn the way to ship me photos of crops. Greens are nice! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary crops! In order for you your deal with to look 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 TH:

TH writes: “Mealy cup sage, Naples Island, Lengthy Seaside, CA. My preliminary cause for photographing these was to remind myself with iPhone’s “Plant look-up” what it’s. Then I pulled again and shifted to the facet, making an attempt to border it a bit higher. I hoped to make that railing that separates the stroll from the bay much less outstanding, and ended up liking this angle with the fountain grass and palm fronds greatest.”

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

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

In case you hate PayPal, you possibly can e mail me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I gives you instructions on tips on how to ship a verify. Thanks!