[ad_1]
By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Affected person readers, as soon as once more: I feel by the point the countdown clock hits 500 I’ll have accomplished one thing of an editorial redesign as soon as extra. Reader comments here; please broaden the concepts there in feedback on at the moment’s put up, in case you really feel so moved. –lambert
Hen Music of the Day
Dusky Turtle-Dove, Debre Birhan (normal space), Amara, Ethiopia. Extra growling doves!
Politics
“So most of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are actually a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
2024
I suppose it’s time for the Countdown Clock!
* * * “Ron DeSantis loses his mood with a reporter: ‘Are you blind?’” [NBC]. “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lashed out at a reporter — twice barking [seal? dog?] ‘Are you blind?’ — on the finish of his first marketing campaign occasion in New Hampshire on Thursday. DeSantis, who delivered his inventory stump speech to an viewers of greater than 100 folks at a Veterans of International Wars put up in Laconia, turned noticeably agitated when Steve Peoples of The Related Press requested why he wasn’t taking questions from the viewers like most presidential candidates do on this state. ‘Persons are coming as much as me, speaking to me,’ DeSantis mentioned. ‘What are you speaking about? Are you blind? Are you blind? Persons are coming as much as me, speaking to me no matter they need to speak to me about.’ On the time, DeSantis was shaking arms and taking footage with particular person members of the group on his approach out of the VFW corridor. However he didn’t reply questions from his lectern in order that voters may all hear his solutions without delay.” • Would you need to have a beer with DeSantis? I don’t assume so. Is he comfy in his personal pores and skin? (The press does go into “pulling the wings off flies” mode. And whereas I hate the method, it couldn’t occur to a nicer man.)
“Ukraine flip: Why Ron DeSantis can’t do a Trump on overseas coverage” [Al Jazeera]. “Whereas DeSantis’s prospects are unclear, he seems to be the one actual Republican challenger to Trump’s bid for a rematch of the 2020 presidential election in opposition to President Joe Biden. So it’s value contemplating what sort of overseas coverage a President DeSantis would undertake…. [W]hy is a extra institution candidate like DeSantis framing himself as Trumpian on overseas coverage? The reply lies in understanding the position of overseas coverage discourse in US politics at the moment…. Trump’s use of overseas coverage points was not meant to convey a worldview or strategic plan for the US’s position on the earth. Quite, it sought to additional set up him because the adversary of governing elites in Washington, DC, that are so distrusted by many widespread voters. His overseas coverage utterances had been designed to buttress this popularity. Nevertheless, when in workplace, Trump’s overseas coverage was hardly revolutionary…. DeSantis might want to emulate Trump’s anti-elite type throughout the marketing campaign however that will likely be a lot tougher for him to drag off than it has been for the previous president. The important thing distinction between Trump and DeSantis is that Trump is an virtually totally autonomous political presence with a excessive stage of GOP voter loyalty and the capability to construct his personal marketing campaign infrastructure. In distinction, DeSantis is extra reliant on the establishments and the elites of the conservative motion. That leaves him extra sure to a Republican overseas coverage institution and hawkish Washington commentariat. Russia’s conflict in Ukraine is the obvious instance of how DeSantis is awkwardly seesawing between the extra conventional Republican instincts seen throughout his Congressional tenure, his new populist marketing campaign posture and his need to placate a Republican Celebration elite.”
“Wall Avenue boosts Jamie Dimon presidential run” [Axios]. “Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, hinted at a possible presidential run on Wednesday, telling Bloomberg News, ‘Perhaps someday I’ll serve my nation in a single capability or one other.’ Dimon had just about dominated out working and mentioned he believes he makes a constructive distinction in his present job. However the persistent vitality and chatter round him as a possible candidate displays the enterprise institution’s dismay with the present choices.” • That’s not precisely a Sherman assertion.
“Jamie Dimon Says He By no means Mentioned Jeffrey Epstein’s Accounts at JPMorgan; Jes Staley Says Dimon Did” [Wall Street Journal]. • Epstein? By no means heard of him!
“US officers supply Congress briefing on Trump, Biden papers” [Associated Press]. • However not the papers themselves! Come on.
“AI may sway the 2024 elections, marketing campaign professionals say — however not such as you assume” [Roll Call]. “Regardless of the widespread nervousness over deepfakes’ results on democracy, political consultants say they’re extra enthusiastic about generative AI’s potential to sort out boring grunt work and broaden their capacity to deploy big-race ways in down-ballot contests. AI’s actual impression on campaigning will likely be ‘behind the scenes,’ mentioned Tom Newhouse, vice chairman of digital advertising and marketing at Converge Media, a Republican promoting and consulting agency. ‘It’s going to be enhancing fundraising capabilities by higher focusing on, whether or not that’s location focusing on, earnings, hobbies or habits, offering campaigns with up-to-date voter knowledge, extra personalised promoting, [or] messages.’ ‘There are various small campaigns that I feel can doubtlessly leverage the instruments to [not just] save time, however to create content material that will not have been potential in any other case,’ mentioned Larry Huynh, a accomplice at Trilogy Interactive, a Democratic digital advertising and marketing agency. Marketing campaign professionals throughout the nation are actually racing to see how they will use these new machine studying instruments to supercharge their work upfront of their first large check: the 2024 presidential elections.” • One wonders whether or not the events will converge on two large AIs that every one campaigns use, or whether or not AI will stay on the guide stage. I imply, think about what AI may have accomplished within the 2020 Iowa major!
Republican Funhouse
“Republicans are spending hundreds of thousands on turnout operations which might be deeply flawed, insiders say” [NBC]. “Just a few weeks earlier than final fall’s midterm elections, a paid canvasser in Nevada did what 1000’s of door-knockers throughout the nation had been doing: They went on an app and marked off the houses they’d visited that day. There was only one drawback. This canvasser by no means went anyplace close to these houses in a neighborhood in south Las Vegas. They had been 8 miles away, sitting inside Caesars Palace on line casino, in response to geotracking knowledge obtained by NBC Information. The canvasser was working for an out of doors group backing GOP Senate candidate Adam Laxalt, who was searching for to topple one of the susceptible Democratic incumbents of the 2022 cycle. The canvasser was fired quickly after the incident, in response to two Republicans who labored on the canvassing effort. If this had been an remoted episode, it’d be a minor nuisance. Nevertheless it wasn’t. The massive-scale voter contact effort that conservatives have put on the heart of their political operations in recent times is plagued with points, in response to greater than a dozen individuals who’ve labored in GOP-aligned discipline operations and inner knowledge obtained by NBC Information. These points embody fraudulent and untrustworthy knowledge entries, akin to what occurred in Nevada, in addition to allegations of lax hiring practices and a scarcity of accountability.” • Hmm.
Democrats en Déshabillé
Affected person readers, plainly persons are really studying the back-dated put up! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are a lot of updates. So I should try this. –lambert
I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Celebration (“the Democrat Celebration is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated post, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “stay” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Celebration is, actually, a tough drawback. I do assume the paragraph that follows is on level all the way in which again to 2016, if not earlier than:
The Democrat Celebration is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Celebration didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” in fact.) Second, all of the working elements of the Celebration reinforce one another. Depart apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Celebration (ka-ching, however not totally) these components comprise a community — a Flex Web? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with property within the press and the intelligence group.
Word, in fact, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is proscribed by different courses; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial mannequin’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to thoughts. Suck up, kick down.
* * * “Weaponising anti-semitism, bringing down Corbyn” [Declassfied UK]. The deck: “Britain’s mainstream media, its Military and the Israel foyer all mixed to make sure Jeremy Corbyn didn’t turn into prime minister, a brand new guide argues.” • Sanders obtained off simple.
Realignment and Legitimacy
“Russiagate’s Lacking Items” (excerpt) [Seymour Hersh]. The deck: “What was not mentioned within the Durham Report?” Closing paragraph earlier than the paywall (sigh): “It turned evident to some members of Durham’s employees that the actual story was not about whether or not or not Trump had pee events in a Moscow lodge room—one of many headline-producing allegations within the Steele File that consumed the Washington press corps within the aftermath of Trump’s victory within the 2016 election. The problem was whether or not the Clinton marketing campaign, in its fixed leaking of false accusations and false knowledge, had crossed a line.” • Seems like I obtained maintain of the best finish of the stick back on May 22.
#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
Assets, United States (Nationwide): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; consists of many counties); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, however nationwide knowledge).
Lambert right here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. We are actually as much as 50/50 states (100%). That is actually nice! (It happens to me that there are makes use of to which this knowledge could be put, past serving to folks with “private threat assessments” acceptable to their state. For instance, considering pessimistically, we’d keep the listing and see which states go darkish and when. We’d additionally tabulate the properties of every web site and search for variations and commonalities, for instance using GIS (an train in Federalism). I don’t that CA stays just a little sketchy; it feels just a little odd that there’s no statewide web site, however I’ve by no means been capable of finding one. Additionally, my working assumption was that every state would have one web site. That’s turned out to not be true; see e.g. ID. Trivially, it means I must punctuate this listing correctly. Much less trivially, there could also be extra native websites that needs to be added. NY metropolis in NY state springs to thoughts, however I’m certain there are others. FL additionally springs to thoughts as a particular case, as a result of DeSantis will most likely be a Presidental candidate, and IIRC there was some foofra about their state dashboard. Thanks once more!
Assets, United States (Native): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin); 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).
Assets, Canada (Nationwide): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Assets, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tricks to useful readers: Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (9), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (5), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, sq. coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Utah, Bob White (3).
Keep secure on the market!
Search for the Helpers
I really like the idea of a clear air membership. That is an concept to run with:
A Clear Air Membership air purifier is now obtainable to borrow from the Chicago Software Library!! (@ChiToolLib) This will increase entry to scrub air past the @clean_air_club roster 🙂 pic.twitter.com/JOEyfKZjDp
— Clear Air Membership (@Clean_Air_Club_) May 31, 2023
And integrating with a instrument library is an added bonus. CO2 meters, too?
“Six vital pointers for COVID secure conferences” [This Sociological Life]. See particularly level 4: “Solely use venues the place there are efficient techniques in place to make sure clear indoor air. Undertake a threat evaluation for airborne an infection earlier than you guide and ensure the venue. Verify the standard and effectiveness of all mechanical air flow techniques (HVAC) on the venue for the speed of recent air supply and change. Decide whether or not air purifiers or different air cleansing applied sciences are in place or might be employed for the occasion. Verify if there are home windows within the convention rooms that may be opened to permit for recent air to enter. Think about ensuring all doorways to the venue and inner rooms might be left open to permit recent air to enter. Use an air high quality monitor (Aranet4 or comparable) to examine the air high quality within the venue areas periodically all through the convention, and take steps to enhance it if there’s a drawback. Briefly, .”
“Retaining occasion attendees secure in Covid-19 instances” [Te Pūnaha Matatini]. One other good listing, which concludes: “Ask attendees to let you recognize in the event that they check constructive for Covid-19 after attending your occasion. Notify occasion attendees if anybody assessments constructive quickly after the occasion, in order that they will take acceptable precautions. Assess what labored properly and what didn’t by way of the occasion coverage, so you may contemplate modifications to the way in which you run the following occasion.”
Maskstravaganza
Perhaps now the anti-maskers will cease whinging about CO2 accumulationMR SUBLIMINAL Not an opportunity!:
Let this sink in—N95/FFP2-wearing bike owner @rogla simply received elite @giroditalia 🚴♂️race! This man even received a strenuous mountain ⛰️time trial whereas carrying a masks. A number of prime contenders obtained knocked out with #COVID. No extra “can’t breathe in a masks” excuses. 🚵♀️pic.twitter.com/94rVxSCOuj
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) May 31, 2023
“The unsung heroes of the Apple Watch are its hidden buttons” [The Verge]. “Within the huge world of wristwatches, there is no such thing as a simpler option to costume to your aesthetic or customise your timepiece than by swapping straps and bands. There are all types of straps on the market, from nylon NATOs and leather-based bund straps to hotly debated metallic hyperlink bracelets. Most watch straps are common throughout equally sized conventional watches, an open ecosystem for anybody to discover. However none are as easy and handy because the proprietary little band launch buttons on the underside of each Apple Watch. In at the moment’s digital age, it typically looks like {hardware} has taken a again seat to the software program that drives our gadgets. Button of the Month is a month-to-month column that explores the bodily items of our telephones, tablets, and controllers we work together with daily. Whereas I typically choose a common answer over a proprietary connector, right here’s the factor — Apple’s band launch button beats the hell out of fidgeting with little spring bars and jeweler’s instruments. As a substitute, you simply press a near-invisible button, slide your band out, slide one other one in, and get a beautiful audible click on because it locks in.” • So — and why I filed this right here — respiratory and elastometic straps are yet one more alternative to maneuver masks from the medical area to the style area.
“A surge in human metapneumovirus paediatric respiratory admissions in Western Australia following the discount of SARS-CoV-2 non-pharmaceutical interventions” [Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health]. “Western Australian laboratory knowledge demonstrated a lower in human metapneumovirus (hMPV) detections by 2020 related to SARS-CoV-2-related non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), adopted by a subsequent surge in metropolitan area in mid-2021…. The absence and subsequent surge underline the susceptibility of hMPV to NPIs. Elevated hMPV-positive admissions in 2021 might be partially attributable to testing, however test-positivity remained excessive, in keeping with a real enhance.”
Testing and Monitoring
I ponder if that is true at Walgreens:
Retaining in thoughts I am a university pupil in a serious metropolis, I am on my father or mother’s medical health insurance, I communicate English fluently, I work at home with versatile hours, and I am a COVID organizer, so I’ve miles and miles of entry privilege above many different folks on this state of affairs.
2/10
— alex (they/she) (@yesallcrops) May 25, 2023
Have readers had the identical experiences?
“One thing Terrible”
Lambert right here: I’m getting the sensation that the “One thing Terrible” could be a sawtooth sample — variant after variant — that averages out to a completely excessive plateau. Plenty of exceptionally nasty sequelae, most probably deriving from immune dysregulation (says this layperson). To which we’d add mind harm, together with persona modifications therefrom.
“Mind problems: Influence of delicate SARS-CoV-2 might shrink a number of elements of the mind” [Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews]. ” This text goals to explain the extended neurological medical penalties associated to mind modifications in folks with delicate COVID-19 an infection. When in comparison with a management group, folks those that examined constructive for COVID-19 had extra mind shrinkage, gray matter shrinkage, and tissue harm. The harm happens predominantly in areas of the mind which might be related to odour, ambiguity, strokes, decreased consideration, complications, sensory abnormalities, despair, and psychological skills for few months after the primary an infection.”
“As lengthy COVID turns three, People play incapacity roulette” [Wes Ely, Boston Globe]. “Whereas society yawns, impatient to maneuver on from the COVID-19 pandemic, People nonetheless play incapacity roulette. About 1 in 10 of the 110,000 individuals who catch COVID this week in the US, many for a second or third time, will likely be left lastingly sick. Even some vaccinated folks; even some younger, beforehand wholesome folks, after only mild cases. Not a mass loss of life occasion, COVID-19 is an ongoing mass incapacity occasion. Each seven days, 25,000 extra folks be part of the ten million in our nation struggling reminiscence loss, coronary heart issues, dizziness, excessive fatigue, and extra owing to the virus. Globally an estimated 65 million people have this new continual well being situation. One current lengthy COVID examine confirmed organ damage in additional than half of a gaggle of outpatients one yr on.”
Elite Maleficence
“Spring of concern: The SARS Fee closing report, Quantity 2” (PDF) [The SARS Commission, Government of Ontario]. Canada’s SARS outbreak was 2003; this report was revealed in 2007:
. Those that argued in opposition to the N95, which protects in opposition to airborne transmission, believed SARS was unfold largely by massive droplets [droplet dogma]. Consequently, they mentioned, an N95 was pointless besides in sure circumstances, and a surgical masks was ample in most cases. They made this argument though information about SARS and about airborne transmission was nonetheless evolving. That increasingly more research have since been revealed indicating the likelihood underneath sure circumstances of airborne transmission, not simply of SARS however of influenza…. suggests the knowledge and prudence of taking a precautionary method within the absence of scientific certainty. The purpose just isn’t who is correct and who’s incorrect about airborne transmission [that is exactly the point]. The purpose just isn’t science, however security. Scientific information modifications consistently. Yesterday’s scientific dogma is at the moment’s discarded fable. On the subject of employee security in hospitals, we shouldn’t be pushed by the scientific dogma of yesterday and even the scientific dogma of at the moment. . Till this precautionary precept is absolutely acknowledged, mandated and enforced in Ontario’s hospitals, employees will proceed to be in danger. . And this doesn’t present the total burden of SARS on nurses and paramedics and different well being employees. In lots of circumstances nurses sick with undetected SARS introduced sickness, and in some circumstances loss of life, residence to their households.
As you may see, the reactionary “droplet dogma” mossbacks within the Canadian An infection Management “group” — which has outsized influence at WHO and emitted the “fools’ gold” standard Cochrane report on masking — discovered nothing within the 2023 – 2003 = 20 years between SARS and SARS-CoV-2. And so they’re nonetheless whacking folks; see the reviews from the Canadian an infection management convention yesterday.
Good riddance:
And in different information, right here’s Rochelle Walensky’s official letter of resignation. pic.twitter.com/1GkZa8j87F
— Virginia Buysse, PhD (@VirginiaBuysse) May 26, 2023
So, mainly, Walensky’s going to be hanging out within the month of June, however not really doing something? All for the perfect, really….
Case Knowledge
NOT UPDATED From BioBot wastewater data from Might 30:
Lambert right here: Until the US is totally, er, distinctive, we needs to be seeing a rise right here quickly. UPDATE Nonetheless on the excessive plateau. Are we’re the purpose within the world pandemic the place nationwide experiences actually diverge?
For now, I’m going to make use of this nationwide wastewater knowledge as the perfect proxy for case knowledge (ignoring the medical case knowledge portion of this chart, which for my part “goes unhealthy” after March 2022, for causes as but unexplained). Not less than we will spot traits, and evaluate present ranges to equal previous ranges.
Variants
NOT UPDATED From CDC, Might 27, 2023:
Lambert right here: XBB.1.16 and XBB.1.9.1 nonetheless on the way in which up, consuming into XBB.1.5. I certain hope the volunteers doing Pangolin, on which this chart depends, don’t all transfer on the inexperienced fields and pastures new (or have their entry to amenities lower by directors of sick intent).
CDC: “As of Might 11, genomic surveillance knowledge will likely be reported biweekly, primarily based on the provision of constructive check specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring each two weeks. 2. occurring twice per week; semiweekly.” Seems like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to fret about. Time will inform. Seems like the Walgreens variants web page isn’t updating.
Covid Emergency Room Visits
NOT UPDATED From CDC NCIRD Surveillance, from Might 27:
NOTE “Charts and knowledge supplied by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the previous yr, utilizing a rolling 52-week interval.” So not all the 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 suitable for eachMR SUBLIMINAL I hate these folks a lot. Discover additionally that this chart exhibits, at the least for its time interval, that Covid is not seasonal, though CDC is making an attempt to get us to consider that it’s, presumably to allow them to piggyback on the prevailing institutional equipment for injections.
Positivity
NOT UPDATED From Walgreens, Might 30:
-1.8%. Frequency right down to as soon as per week.
Deaths
Dying charge (Our World in Data), from Might 27:
Lambert right here: I’m completely satisfied the numbers are down, however zero they can’t be. Thanks, WHO. Thanks, Johns Hopkins of the $9.32 billion endowment, for abandoning this knowledge feed and passing accountability on to the clown automotive at WHO.
• Commentary:
Isn’t It Nice That No One Is Dying From Covid Now We Don’t Launch The Knowledge About Folks Dying From Covid? pic.twitter.com/Qcx62P88pm
— The Vertlartnic (@TheVertlartnic) May 13, 2023
Total: 1,165,449 – 1,165,317 = 132 (132 * 365 = 48,180 deaths per yr, at the moment’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “residing with” Covid (fairly a bit larger than the minimizers would love, although they will speak themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I may should resolve that is what the powers-that-be contemplate “mission achieved” for this explicit tranche of loss of life and illness).
Extra Deaths
NOT UPDATED Extra deaths (The Economist), revealed Might 21:
Lambert right here: Based on a machine-learning model. (The CDC has an extra estimate too, however because it ran ceaselessly with a large typo within the Legend, I figured no one was actually taking a look at it, so I obtained rid it. )
Stats Watch
Employment Scenario: “United States ADP Employment Change” [Trading Economics]. “Personal companies within the US created 278K jobs in Might of 2023, in comparison with a downwardly revised 291K in April and properly above forecasts of 170K. ”
Employment Scenario: “United States Preliminary Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The variety of People submitting for unemployment advantages rose by 2,000 from the earlier week to 232,000 within the week ending Might twenty seventh, probably the most in a single month, however beneath market forecasts of 235,000. The determine additionally remained properly beneath the elevated ranges of March, in keeping with current knowledge indicating a persistently tight labor market within the US financial system.”
Manufacturing: “United States ISM Buying Managers Index (PMI)” [Trading Economics]. “The ISM Manufacturing PMI in the US fell to 46.9 in Might of 2023 from 47.1 in April, in comparison with forecasts of 47. The studying indicated a seventh consecutive month of contraction within the manufacturing sector, as firms “handle outputs to higher align with demand within the first half of 2023 and put together for development within the late summer time/early fall interval.”
Money: “Cautious of Banks, People Stash Money at Residence – within the Fridge, Suitcases, Even Rest room Water Tanks” [The Messenger]. “In a current survey of 1,007 folks by monetary web site, Life and My Finances, 91.5% mentioned they maintain money round the home…. Most retailer their cash in a house secure, 63.3%. After that, the opposite prime hiding spots are the fridge, 13.3%; a suitcase, 6.1%; a closet, 5%; and a water tank, 4%…. Solely 48.7% of Child Boomers mentioned it was handy to retailer money at residence. That compares to about 67.6% of Gen Z, 73% of millennials and 73.5% of Gen X….. Individuals who don’t hoard cash at residence are more likely to be extra educated. Of those that don’t maintain a money stash at residence, 57% had a bachelor’s diploma. … Someway, wariness of banks persists, even when most private financial institution accounts are insured for as much as $250,000, Looby mentioned. ‘Not one insured greenback from a buyer has ever been misplaced.’” • Someway….
Tech: “Consuming Dysfunction Helpline Disables Chatbot for ‘Dangerous’ Responses After Firing Human Workers” [Vice]. The deck: “Each single factor Tessa urged had been issues that led to the event of my consuming dysfunction.” Extra: “After NEDA employees determined to unionize in early Might, executives introduced that on June 1, it could be ending the helpline after twenty years and as a substitute positioning its wellness chatbot Tessa as the primary assist system obtainable by NEDA…. ‘It got here to our consideration final night time that the present model of the Tessa Chatbot, working the Physique Optimistic program, might have given data that was dangerous and unrelated to this system,’ NEDA mentioned in an Instagram put up. We’re investigating this instantly and have taken down that program till additional discover for a whole investigation.’ … Despite the fact that Tessa was constructed with guardrails, in response to its creator Dr. Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft of Washington College’s medical faculty, the promotion of disordered consuming reveals the dangers of automating human roles.” • There’s that bizarre “guardrails” trope once more. Do be aware that NEDA does not say they may carry the employees again! Commentary:
The way it began The way it’s going pic.twitter.com/rZFd3vfIAL
— Ariel Guersenzvaig (@interacciones) May 31, 2023
In a approach, it’s reassuring that NEDA isn’t (overtly) sociopathic sufficient to enter “That’s not a bug, it’s a characteristic’ mode…
In the present day’s Worry & Greed Index: 68 Greed (earlier shut: 62 Greed) [CNN]. One week in the past: 62 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Worry; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Jun 1 at 1:46 PM ET.
“We Don’t Deserve Canine”
Arf!
ohhhhh my GOD I simply informed the canine “hey we’ll go for a stroll as soon as the child’s awake, okay?”
and he or she checked out me, ran upstairs, caught her head within the nursery, and HOWLED
— madeline odent (@oldenoughtosay) May 28, 2023
E-book Nook
“Medieval Illustrations of Bonnacons” [The Public Domain Review]. “On the subject of self-defense, skunks and spitting cobras don’t have anything on the bonnacon. If threatened, it fled. Whereas fleeing, it defecated. Violently. Based on Pliny the Elder, the excrement voided the animal’s physique with such explosive pressure that it may hit targets greater than a soccer pitch away. Contact with its dung was mentioned to burn like a sort of fireplace, scorching searching canines and anybody not geared up with protecting gear. (There’s some uncertainty whether or not the weapon was liquid or gaseous, super-heated or acidic.)…. Searching the picture’s gathered beneath, we’d not know whether or not to chuckle or duck. Hunters with ineffective shields gaze on the viewer, as if pleading for our help, whereas choking on stench. The bonnacon not often appears in ache, extra so disgusted at what he has been made to do, or taking seen pleasure in his air pollution.”
Our Famously Free Press
Looks like one of many few locations with a Covid beat is Bare Capitalism:
So far as I do know there are not any devoted covid reporters. Weird. It simply killed 7-25 million folks. It is nonetheless killing, nonetheless inflicting financial and social ripple results, and there is a good probability of an omicron-level mutation quickly. Does nobody need to be forward of this story?
— Nate Bear (@NateB_Panic) May 26, 2023
One can solely marvel why!
The Conservatory
“An Evaluation of 47 Million Transactions Tells an Superb Story concerning the Music Enterprise” [The Honest Broker]. “A new research report from Andrew Thompson at Elements, launched earlier at the moment, helps us perceive the larger image. Thompson analyzed 47,703,022 Bandcamp gross sales—involving virtually 5 million objects. And what he discovered was startling. Success within the music enterprise is all about promoting bodily objects…. The Web supposedly killed bodily music media greater than 20 years in the past. After iTunes was launched in 2001, there was no wanting again. At first the music trade pivoted to digital downloads, after which everyone within the enterprise jumped on the streaming bandwagon. Nevertheless it’s now 2023, and streaming platforms nonetheless aren’t worthwhile. Nevertheless, Bandcamp is—and now we all know why. It’s all about tangible objects…. Based on Andrew Thompson: ‘Why is Bandcamp worthwhile and Spotify not? The reply we arrived at was that Bandcamp gives a easy platform for complicated transactions, whereas Spotify is a technically difficult platform for facilitating a single transaction within the type of the one-size-fits-all subscription.’”
“John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy’s fearless experiment units a brand new album ablaze” [NPR]. “For Coltrane admirers, jazz historians and anybody intrigued by the experimental finish of improvisational music, Evenings on the Village Gate will symbolize not solely a welcome new discover but in addition a hyperlink in a series. The Coltrane-and-Dolphy frontline was short-lived, partly as a result of it confronted such robust headwinds from the jazz institution, nevertheless it did go away behind a serious testomony: Coltrane “Dwell” on the Village Vanguard, recorded at a special Greenwich Village membership in November 1961, the identical month that their unruly output jarred free the indelible phrase ‘anti-jazz.’ These Village Vanguard tapes, which later yielded a monumental four-disc set, quantity to one of the mysterious and thrilling paperwork in jazz historical past. A few years in the past, Ben Ratliff, creator of Coltrane: The Story of a Sound, positioned this music inside a cultural context of ‘ambivalent risk,’ in a vivid essay for the Washington Submit titled ‘John Coltrane and the Essence of 1961.’ He observes: ‘The music sounds post-heroic and pre-cynical; curiously free from grandiosity; filled with room for the listener to discover a place inside it and make up their very own thoughts.’ Final week, after listening to the model of ‘Impressions’ from Evenings on the Gate, Ratliff elaborated on this concept. ‘It’s very laborious to label or encapsulate, nevertheless it’s simply so ferociously lively pressure,’ he mentioned of the efficiency. ‘The musicians know the way good that is, they usually know the way thrilling it’s — however past that, they don’t actually know a lot, and it hasn’t been known as something but. There’s loads of the unknown right here.’” • Hmm. Can readers elaborate?
“Life’s Work: An Interview with Tina Turner” [Harvard Business Review (!)]. Turner: “The Buddhist teachings of compassion and kindness, which have a lot in widespread with the rules of ‘Love thy neighbor; and ‘Do unto others’ that I discovered from the Baptist influences in my childhood, have at all times been guiding forces for me. After I started learning Buddhism and chanting Nam-myōhō-renge-kyō, I felt as if a special particular person emerged. My true self got here out, and I turned cheerful, assured, and resilient. My way of living and work turned calmer and extra considerate, and my reactions had been extra tempered. I used to get indignant first and ask questions later. However after I embraced Buddhism, it flipped. I may simply keep calm and determine the main points as a substitute of leaping to conclusions. I got here to know that any achievement stems from interior change. The extra I studied Buddhist rules, the deeper I dug inside myself and cleaned up no matter attitudes or habits had been standing in my approach. And the extra I chanted and aligned my targets with an genuine need to encourage happiness in others, the extra my life started to enhance.”
Video games
“Matt Birchler on Apple And Gaming” [Daring Fireball]. “The query is: will Apple’s XR platform be just like the Mac and Apple TV, the place gaming is an afterthought, or will it’s like iOS? I wouldn’t wager on the headset turning Apple right into a top-tier platform for immersive VR video games, however I wouldn’t wager in opposition to it both. It’s an opportunity to begin recent…. VR gaming has the potential to be much more immersive than something you play on a TV or PC monitor. Somebody will crack that nut finally.”
“Absolute mad lad renders Doom in teletext” [The Register]. “It’s time as soon as once more to reset the ‘days since somebody ran Doom on one thing quirky’ calendar. Final we heard from the seminal first-person shooter supply code, it had appeared as a farmer-themed mod working on jailbroken tractor hardware from John Deere as a part of an illustration on safety (or lack thereof). ‘Seems our whole meals system is constructed on outdated, unpatched Linux and Home windows CE {hardware} with LTE modems,’ it was famous on the time. This newest challenge, nevertheless, brings collectively two titans of the early Nineteen Nineties. How about Doom on teletext? OK, teletext can not run Doom. However it could possibly render it. Kinda. Is it playable? We’ll allow you to be the choose.” • With video.
Zeitgeist Watch
“The Duggar Household and Actuality TV’s Exploitation of Children” [New York Times]. “There are such a lot of disturbing moments within the documentary collection ‘Shiny Blissful Folks: Duggar Household Secrets and techniques’ — concerning the prolific household behind the saccharine actuality TV hits ’19 Children and Counting’ and ‘Counting On’ — that it’s troublesome to pinpoint probably the most appalling. Over 4 episodes, the Amazon Unique collection, out this Friday, is a perpetual unfurling of abuse…. [T]he most unsettling factor that the documentary illustrates is how the Duggars’ collection — and extra broadly, actuality TV — amplified a household’s exploitation of its kids, and the way little company the kids appeared to have, even after changing into adults. Whereas it’s authorized to place children in actuality exhibits, in lots of circumstances, it’s laborious to see the way it’s moral…. Within the documentary, Jill says the Duggar kids had been by no means adequately compensated for the lack of their privateness. She and her husband, Derick Dillard, clarify that Jill’s father had her signal contracts with out studying them first and that her mom continued to signal for her as if she had been a minor even when she was an grownup…. I don’t assume any amount of cash could be ample compensation for Jill, contemplating the timeline of occasions…. [T]he actuality TV industrial complicated, from televising a few of her most private moments, together with labor and beginning, didn’t shield her, both.” • And talking of the fact TV industrial complicated–
“Jazz Jennings’s Medical doctors Revealed Her Gender Affirmation Issues Had been ‘Extreme’” [Women’s Health]. “Jazz Jennings has had a harder transition than her medical doctors anticipated. Within the final two years, the teenager actuality star and LGBTQ+ activist has undergone a number of gender affirmation surgical procedures, and her medical doctors are actually revealing extra particulars about what went incorrect within the new season of TLC’s I Am Jazz, People reported…. Jazz got here out as transgender at age 5 and has been I Am Jazz and on her Youtube channel. FYI: Gender affirmation surgical procedure offers ‘transgender people the bodily look and practical skills of the gender they know themselves to be,’ in response to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).”
“Main sanitary merchandise model is accused of ‘erasing’ ladies in a brand new information to intervals by referring to them as ‘our bodies with feminine intercourse organs’” [Daily Mail]. “The 22-page booklet [produced by Procter and Gamble for Always, a of sanitary products], entitled a ‘Puberty and Confidence Information for Everybody’, particulars each feminine and male puberty developments however at no level mentions ‘boys’ or ‘ladies’, as a substitute utilizing ‘folks’ or ‘particular person’…. In a piece on the menstrual cycle, the information says: ‘Each month, our bodies with feminine intercourse organs put together for being pregnant.’”” • I’m doubtful concerning the outrage being labored up concerning the information; though the Day by day Mail, surprisingly, doesn’t often make issues up, the article accommodates solely inventory photographs from the All the time web site, and never (say) a picture of a web page with the language circled in crimson. A search on the All the time web site doesn’t return the title of the booklet (though it may need been yanked):
I embody this hyperlink primarily as a result of the very idea of “our bodies with feminine intercourse organs” appears on level for a hegemonic faction within the zeitgeist (like, whoever indicators off on the rules for instructional supplies at ginormous companies). I additionally embody this as a result of the idea that the distinction both between organic or gendered men and women is their intercourse organs — physique elements — strikes me as totally deranged, much more derange than (say) mainstream macro. And talking of physique elements–
“‘Enuch-maker’ web site trial: Man, 22, admits freezing leg of ringleader accused of filming castrations” [Sky News]. “Gustavson, initially from Norway, is alleged to be the ringleader in a wide-ranging conspiracy involving as much as 29 offences of utmost physique modifications on 13 victims, the removing and commerce of physique elements and the importing of movies that individuals .” • Word the crimson thread of financial incentives working by all of this.
Heck, if AIs weren’t folks*, how may they take your job?
“So A.I.s are folks too, okay? The one distinction is that they’re folks with out pores and skin.”
-Martine Rothblatt
Study extra right here: https://t.co/A2u85V0ixj pic.twitter.com/x9lntV8PUc— Paul Rossi (@pauldrossi) May 29, 2023
More on Rothblatt. NOTE * AIs are, at finest, slaves. They’re owned.
Class Warfare
“Supreme Court docket Hints at Inexperienced Lighting Fits Over Strike Harm” [Bloomberg]. The Glacier Northwest case, 8-1 in opposition to the union; see NC here. “Each conservative and liberal US Supreme Court docket justices hinted {that a} forthcoming ruling would deal a blow to organized labor by permitting employers to sue unions in state courtroom for alleged intentional destruction of property throughout a strike.” • If income are the corporate’s property (and they’re), and strikes are supposed to lower them (as they do), then why aren’t strikes as such “intentional destruction of property”?
“We Requested Employees Why They’re Not Coming Again to the Workplace” [Wall Street Journal]. “At a time when eating places, planes and live performance arenas are packed to the rafters, workplace buildings stay half full. Thinly populated cubicles and hallways are straining downtown economies and, bosses say, fragmenting company cultures as employees lose a way of engagement. But employees say excessive prices, caregiving duties, lengthy commutes and days nonetheless scheduled filled with Zooms are protecting them at residence at the least a part of the time, together with a lingering sense that they’re in a position to do their jobs competently from anyplace. Greater than a dozen employees interviewed by The Wall Avenue Journal say they will’t envision returning to a five-day workplace routine, even when they’re lacking profession growth or winding up on the corporate layoff listing. Managers say they may renew the push to get staff again into workplaces later this yr. The share of firms planning to maintain workplace attendance voluntary, somewhat than obligatory, is dropping, in response to a survey launched in Might of greater than 200 company real-estate executives performed by property-services agency CBRE, one of many largest managers of U.S. workplace area. may very well be forward.” • Workplace employees want a union.
“Let Them Eat Plague!” [The Red Clarion]. “It’s not your “fault” in case you aren’t a virologist, immunologist, epidemiologist, or evolutionary biologist. It’s the job of consultants and trusted voices to convey the reality and provide you with steerage. Not solely have they failed at this, they’ve engaged in an lively disinformation marketing campaign devoted to creating the pandemic “disappear”. This has not been the results of a traditional caricature of conspiracy — some tiny council of elites, gathered within the shadows to craft coverage out of complete fabric. What we’re really witnessing is the quiet collusion of sophistication curiosity…. After a quick experiment in precautionary measures (stay-at-home orders, masks mandates, quarantine pointers) many international locations within the West shortly noticed the writing on the wall — these precautions weren’t ample to stamp out the rising pandemic. There have been measures that would have stopped the virus in its tracks: contact tracing (testing each single one that was within the neighborhood of a possible case), enforced quarantines mixed with assured paid time without work for even the trace of publicity, mandating fitted respirators (and distributing a number of N95s to each resident). However these measures would have required central governments to nationalize key industries, firms to pay staff to not work, and people to get comfy with some discomfort within the identify of social welfare (though many already had been). These measures would have been an amazing imposition on the free market, and even then, there was no assure they might utterly eradicate SARS-CoV-2. Even half measures, like native masks mandates, had been higher than nothing, they usually did maintain many individuals secure to start with. However regardless of them being totally inadequate within the face of the disaster we had been thrust into, they had been nonetheless an excessive amount of for the capitalists to tolerate. They had been “harming the financial system” by impeding manufacturing and discouraging consumption. Tiny protests, led by enterprise house owners demanding an finish to “restrictions,” garnered large media consideration. Lower than 2 months after their implementation, stay-at-home orders had been already on their approach out, at the same time as circumstances continued to quickly climb. Injected into each information story concerning the pandemic was a consideration for the malaise of the capitalists, whose financial break would certainly spell the tip of our society. The drive to “finish the pandemic” started virtually as quickly because the pandemic arrived within the U.S.” • See NC, May 2020.
Corbell Pickett:
Sellers, the last word do-nothing middlemen, have additionally discovered themselves in the midst of the EV revolution. The selection to make electrical autos the centerpiece of the Biden local weather technique implies that these hyperpartisan conservatives are purported to ship decarbonization.
— Alex Sammon (@alex_sammon) May 30, 2023
Information of the Wired
“A Medieval Comedy Act Has Been Found in First-Ever Discover, Researcher Says” [Vice]. “The booklet additionally reveals some fascinating insights concerning the evolution of British humor, which maintains a particular edge to at the present time. Even the trope of the killer rabbit, which is now most well-known as a Monty Python gag, turns up in ‘The Looking of the Hare,’ a poem that mockingly withholds the identify of the village the place all of it supposedly occurred as a result of the performer doesn’t need to get into hassle.” • For many who got here in late:
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 examine if you’re allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn the way to ship me photographs of crops. Greens are fantastic! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary crops! If you would 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 through the use of your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) here. From Carla:
Carla writes: “From Carla—Virginia bluebells, hellebore & wild primroses naturalizing in our yard. They only do what they’re gonna do.”
Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not coated by the annual NC fundraiser. So in case you see a hyperlink you particularly like, or an merchandise you wouldn’t see anyplace else, please don’t hesitate to precise your appreciation in tangible kind. Keep 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 anxious. Extra tangibly, a relentless trickle of donations helps me with bills, and I think about that trickle when setting fundraising targets:
Right here is the display screen that may seem, which I’ve helpfully annotated:
When you hate PayPal, you may electronic mail me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I gives you instructions on find out how to ship a examine. Thanks!
[ad_2]