By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Affected person readers, I’ve exorcised the demon from my iPad: Settings -> Accessibility -> VoiceOver is now OFF. What a reduction! –lambert
Fowl Music of the Day
Golden Bowerbird, Queensland, Australia.
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Politics
“However what’s authorities itself, however the best of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51
“Right here’s meals for thought, had Ahab time to assume; however Ahab by no means thinks; he solely feels, feels, feels” –Herman Melville, Moby Dick
“You possibly can’t actually mud for vomit.” Nigel Tufnel, That is Spinal Faucet
Abortion
Biden Administration
“Sen. Kyrsten Sinema Privately Blew Up Biden Nominee Wanted to Enact Regulatory Agenda” [The Intercept]. “Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was the one to scuttle President Joe Biden’s selection to go the obscure however all-important Workplace of Info and Regulatory Affairs, based on sources acquainted with the standoff. The workplace was created to assist pace — or, extra precisely, make considerably much less torturous — the method of writing laws, which requires enter from the general public, authorized critiques, and coordination amongst quite a lot of companies. The workplace might be essential for implementing the Inflation Discount Act, notably its local weather provisions, and with the Home and Senate not assured a Democratic majority come January, it may play an outsize function in finishing up Biden’s agenda…. The Biden administration started vetting Ganesh Sitaraman, a legislation professor at Vanderbilt College, in 2021…. Months later, in late spring, Sinema knowledgeable the White Home that she would oppose Sitaraman. … Sitaraman is a former aide to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and the creator of the guide ‘The Public Choice: Easy methods to Broaden Freedom, Improve Alternative, and Promote Equality.’ He’s additionally an in depth good friend of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.” • Ah, the dreaded public choice. I can’t wait to see who 2022’s Sinema is. As a result of the Democrats all the time appear to have one.
It’s glorious the way in which that dwelling a traditional life has morphed right into a return to debt slavery:
I believe this solutions the query about why they did not declare their broader non-emergency powers below the Increased Schooling Act: they did not wish to admit they’ll and can do that over and over. That is a critical mistake.
/1 https://t.co/AouBpFNXnj— Marshall Steinbaum 🔥 (@Econ_Marshall) August 26, 2022
2022
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* * *“‘The US may lose the appropriate to vote’: high official’s democracy warning” [Guardian]. “Colorado’s secretary of state, Jena Griswold, is warning anybody who will hear that the destiny of free and honest elections in the USA hangs within the steadiness on this November’s midterm contests. In most of the best races for places of work with authority over US elections, Republicans nominated candidates who’ve embraced or echoed Donald Trump’s fable of a stolen election in 2020. Griswold, who chairs the Democratic Affiliation of Secretaries of State (Dass) and is operating for re-election, is urging People to concentrate to the once-sleepy down-ballot contests for secretary of state – lest they lose their democracy.” • The Democrats are, naturally, pouring cash into these essential races. Oh, wait…
TX: “Beto O’Rourke postpones occasions after being hospitalized” [Politico]. “Beto O’Rourke, Texas’ Democratic candidate for governor, will ‘postpone occasions’ after being hospitalized with a bacterial an infection, he wrote Sunday on Twitter. ‘Whereas my signs have improved, I might be resting at dwelling in El Paso in accordance with the docs’ suggestions,’ O’Rourke stated. He has been discharged from the hospital, marketing campaign communications director Chris Evans stated Sunday. The previous member of Congress was hospitalized at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio after feeling sick on Friday, he wrote. He was identified with a bacterial an infection and obtained care together with IV antibiotics, based on the tweet.”
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2024
“Janet Yellen was skeptical of President Biden’s student-loan forgiveness plan and Jill Biden expressed reservations, whereas Kamala Harris was an enormous backer of debt cancellation: NYT” [The Hill]. • If Harris thinks she’s going to trip that $10,00 anyplace, she’s mistaken. (Story hook: An “administration official” says Harris “instructed her employees” to put in writing a memo and hand it to Biden. Robust stuff!)
Republican Funhouse
“The Republican Occasion Is Having an Id Disaster” [Bloomberg]. “This can be a defining second for Republicans who have been relying on a powerful midterm exhibiting to launch themselves again into the White Home in 2024. However the celebration’s identification disaster is clear within the uneven performances of Senate candidates in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Ohio, amongst others, that jeopardizes its prospects for a congressional majority. ‘You’ve obtained loads of factions inside the celebration,’ Robert Blizzard, a Republican strategist, stated in an interview. ‘It seems to be convoluted. Are we the Trump celebration? Are we on the level the place we’re DeSantis’ celebration?’” • The Republican base has all the time been keen to have Republican electeds lose.
“Defendants focused in DeSantis’ voter fraud crackdown have been instructed they might vote” [Politico]. ” A number of individuals who have been arrested final week as a part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ voter fraud crackdown have been notified by official authorities entities they have been eligible to vote, based on court docket paperwork and interviews. The defendants instructed authorities that they had no intention of committing voter fraud, based on affidavits, and in some instances have been baffled by their arrests as a result of counties had despatched them voter registration playing cards and authorised them to vote. The defendants have been vilified by the governor throughout a excessive profile press convention final week, at which DeSantis introduced the arrest of 20 individuals — convicted murderers and intercourse offenders — who allegedly forged votes within the 2020 election once they weren’t eligible to. The defendants, due to their convictions, weren’t permitted to vote.”
“Iowa Election Deniers’ New Idea And Plan To Canvass For ‘Phantom Voters’” [Iowa Starting Line]. “The brand new entrance within the Donald Trump-led effort to disclaim the outcomes of the 2020 election has formally come to Iowa. That’s thanks partially to a current high-profile go to to the state by Dr. Douglas Frank, a former math trainer from Ohio who now travels the nation on a campaign to “show” the election was stolen and rally disillusioned Trump voters to his trigger. He spoke to a Trump-inspired Iowa grassroots group referred to as “Iowa Canvassing” late final month on the Heartland Acres Occasion Middle in Independence. Throughout a 3-hour presentation, he galvanized the gang of near 100 attendees of their mission to uncover widespread voter fraud within the state. Frank additionally needed to show them easy methods to examine the outcomes for themselves—by way of persuasion to the purpose of annoyance, and even by suing your county auditor if essential…. “You want to have the ability to clarify it to your mates,” Frank instructed the gang. “I would like you to see why and the way—and you then’ll be a part of it.” Nothing flawed with checking issues out for your self, in fact. However by way of the course of trying out Frank, it seems his broader objective is to undermine religion in America’s elections system by way of obscure accusations and scary-looking graphs that he assigns all-encompassing conspiracy theories to.”
Democrats en Déshabillé
I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Occasion (“the Democrat Occasion is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated publish, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “dwell” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Occasion is, the truth is, a tough downside. I do assume the paragraph that follows is on level all the way in which again to 2016, if not earlier than:
The Democrat Occasion is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Hear, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Occasion didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” in fact.) Second, all of the working components of the Occasion reinforce one another. Depart apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Occasion (ka-ching, however not solely) these components comprise a community — a Flex Web? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with belongings within the press and the intelligence group.
Be aware, in fact, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is restricted 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.
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Extra like this, please:
This is the reason my reply to “however what concerning the Republicans” was all the time “fuck ’em.”
And the Republicans by no means beat me. Not as soon as. https://t.co/Q35iz20p4z
— Lee 🖖 Carter (@carterforva) August 28, 2022
On the whole, liberal Democrats are far too fearful about what Republicans may do. They should fear about what they’ll do, or relatively what they might do however aren’t.
Realignment and Legitimacy
One thing to stay up for:
😨 43% of People assume a U.S. civil conflict is probably going inside the subsequent decade. The quantity goes as much as 54% for many who determine as “Robust Republicans”.
Solely 11% of People consider it is not going in any respect.
Supply: https://t.co/Xc7jvNdXsr pic.twitter.com/tuo1C4t1nQ
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) August 30, 2022
Speculating freely: I can see one thing akin to Mussolini’s March on Rome, which started with labor unrest. If cops began breaking heads to bust unions, liberal Democrats both wouldn’t know what to do or would assist them. And if the cops then determined to arrange…
#COVID19
• From Naomi Wu, a measured tackle Corsi-Rosenthal bins:
And:
In fact, Wu is correct (though I suppose the actual query in the USA just isn’t why Corsi and Rosenthal haven’t gone into the manufacturing enterprise, however why frauds and hucksters are already promoting ionizers into college programs). Nevertheless, I view the relationships solid by making and inserting Corsi-Rosenthal bins as necessary in and of themselves; many individuals coming collectively to offer an answer of profit to others. We don’t see sufficient of that. (That’s, my curiosity just isn’t “How you can breathe virus-free air for below a $100!”, as a result of that falls into the non-public danger evaluation body. Somewhat, I prefer it when teams construct a number of Corsi-Rosenthal bins as a challenge, to guard an establishment. That’s actually an act of collective defiance, because the motion implies that (1) Covid has not gone away, (2) Covid is airborne, and (3) we have to shield others in addition to ourselves. All controversial propositions in Biden’s America!)
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• Maskstravaganza: Clear masks:
Clear masks seekers: discovered one other N95 window respirator (it’s NIOSH licensed!) https://t.co/kT4TGigBz4
— Amanda Hu (@amandalhu) August 26, 2022
Do any readers have expertise with this sort of masks? I see the utility for e.g. lipreading, however frankly it appears like some type of class error.
• Maskstravaganza: Methods, explanations, research to counteract the affect of trolls. Lengthy thread:
1. Let’s begin by going again to a fundamental precept: the extra your masks leaks, the much less efficient it’s towards aerosol transmission. This is the reason a brand new Swiss examine discovered respirators (eg N95) masks to be superior to surgical masks in stopping an infection for well being care staff. pic.twitter.com/DRnFl20Jet
— Invoice Comeau 🇨🇦🇺🇦 (@Billius27) August 16, 2022
• Maskstravaganza: Awful paradigm and question-begging:
Rising peer stress to go maskless in indoor areas. I take care of it by likening it to driving on a speed-trap stretch of street & having a automobile zoom up behind me. Whereas rushing is that driver’s prerogative (& danger), I do know my finest transfer is to allow them to cross, not rushing up myself.
— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) August 26, 2022
Going maskless with someone who isn’t masked isn’t like pulling up behind them. It’s like slicing them off after which jamming on the brakes. Has Wachter had a number of bouts of Covid, or what?
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• “Like many”:
final full day of the convention, I woke with a light itchy throat that lasted just a few minutes. Nasal swab was destructive for antigen. Thought the itchy throat was from speaking an excessive amount of the day earlier than (not used to speaking a lot)
On reflection this was most likely symptom day 1
— Michael Lin, MD PhD 🧬 (@michaelzlin) August 14, 2022
By no means considered the PMC convention circuit as a demise cult, however right here we’re….
• Extra on ISME18, the microbiologist convention that was a superspreading occasion:
And #NeverForget #ISME18 pic.twitter.com/nlPmACAbA2
— Adrian Malong (@apmalong) August 28, 2022
And:
After avoiding it for thus lengthy, I lastly obtained COVID following #ISME18 (which was an superior convention scientifically). Foggy mind and different signs thus far… Btw, could be good to someway estimate the proportion of contaminated individuals following the convention. pic.twitter.com/ymKUaqqcoz
— Cecile Gubry-Rangin (@micecoevo) August 24, 2022
Sure, it will be nice if we had contact tracing after conferences. But when we did that, effectively….
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If you happen to missed it, right here’s a publish on my queasiness with CDC numbers, particularly case depend, which I (nonetheless) take into account most necessary, regardless of what Walensky’s psychos at CDC who invented “group ranges” assume. However these are the numbers we have now.
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Case Rely
Case depend for the USA:
Instances are undercounted, one supply saying by an element of six, Gottlieb pondering we solely choose up one in seven or eight.) Therefore, I take the nominal case depend and multiply it by six to approximate the actual degree of instances, and draw the DNC-blue “Biden Line” at that time. The earlier depend was ~84,200. Right now, it’s ~84,200 and 88,700 * 6 = a Biden line at 532,200 per day. (Keep in mind these information factors are weekly averages, so each day fluctuations are smoothed out.) The black “Fauci Line” is a counter to triumphalism, because it compares present ranges to previous crises. If you happen to take a look at the Fauci line, you will note that regardless of the bleating and yammering about Covid being “over,” we have now solely only in the near past reached the (nominal) case degree of November 1, 2021, and we’re very removed from that of July 1, 2021. And the actual degree is way worse.
Regional case depend for 4 weeks:
The South:
Florida Man as steady as ever.
The South (minus Texas and Florida):
The West:
I’m nonetheless unsure I like the present massive drop, with anecdotes about massive outbreaks at LAX and Google.
Wastewater
Wastewater information (CDC), August 23:
Very sad with the gray dots in California, or just about no dots in Texas and Florida. We’ve no examine on case numbers in vital states.
For grins, August 20:
What I’m actually fearful about is a rise in gray dots (“no current information”). as a result of that may imply the trouble is being shut down or defunded.
Positivity
From the Walgreen’s take a look at positivity tracker, August 30:
-1.4%. The curve contained in the pink circle is definitely encouraging.
Transmission
Here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to community transmission. (This is the map CDC wants only hospitals to look at, not you.)
That is really bettering. Extra yellow within the Plains states and the Mountain states.
NOT UPDATED Speedy Riser information, by county (CDC), August 26:
I suppose that if case counts are certainly degree, it’s possible there could be few fast risers.
Earlier Speedy Riser information:
NOT UPDATED Hospitalization information, by state (CDC), August 26:
Plenty of inexperienced, which ought to make the hospital-centric goons on the Facilities for Illness blissful.
NOTE: Speedy Riser and Hospitalization information are up to date Wednesdays and Fridays.
Variants
Lambert right here: It’s past irritating how gradual the variant information is. I appeared for extra charts: California doesn’t to a BA.4/BA.5 breakdown. New York does nevertheless it, too, is on a molasses-like two-week cycle. Does no person within the public well being institution get a promotion for monitoring variants? Are there no grants? Is there a single lab that does this work, and everyone will get the outcomes from them? Further sources from readers welcome [grinds teeth, bangs head on desk].
NOT UPDATED Variant information, nationwide (Walgreens), August 13:
No signal of BA2.75 at Walgreens, regardless of its success in India and presence in Bay Space wastewater.
NOT UPDATED Variant information, nationwide (CDC), August 6 (Nowcast off):
No signal of BA2.75 as but.
Deaths
Loss of life fee (Our World in Knowledge):
Whole: 1,069,499 – 1,068,111 = 1388 (1388 * 365 = 506620, artificially excessive due to my three-day weekend; at present’s LivingWith™* quantity (fairly a bit greater than the minimizers would love, thought they’ll discuss themselves into something. Fluctuates fairly a bit, however even the low numbers are dangerous). I’ve added an anti-triumphalist black Fauci Line. It’s good that for deaths I’ve a easy, each day chart that simply retains chugging alongside, in contrast to every part else CDC and the White Home are screwing up or letting go darkish, good job.
Stats Watch
Employment Scenario: “United States Job Openings” [Trading Economics]. “The variety of job openings within the US rose by 199,000 from a month earlier to 11.2 million in July of 2022, whereas markets had anticipated it to drop to 10.45 million. It was the primary enhance in job openings after three consecutive months of slight declines, reflecting persistent tightness within the labor market amid employee shortages.” • Musical interlude.
Housing: “United States Case Shiller House Worth Index YoY” [Trading Economics]. “The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city dwelling value index within the US elevated 18.6% year-on-year in June of 2022, the least in six months and effectively under forecasts of 19.5%. “The mortgage financing has change into dearer because the Federal Reserve ratchets up rates of interest, a course of that continued as our June information have been gathered. Because the macroeconomic atmosphere continues to be difficult, dwelling costs might effectively proceed to decelerate”, based on S&P Dow Jones & CoreLogic.”
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Right now’s Concern & Greed Index: 50 Impartial (earlier shut: 53 Impartial) [CNN]. One week in the past: 57 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Aug 30 at 1:21 PM EDT.
Rapture Index: Closes unchanged [Rapture Ready]. Report Excessive, October 10, 2016: 189. Present: 187. (Keep in mind that bringing on the Rapture is good.). They’re lacking Drought and Meals Provide. Ya know, I scan the entire checklist, and I’ve obtained to surprise if that is one more quantity that’s being rigged.
The Gallery
Too meta:
Power of behavior, 1960 #magritte #belgianart https://t.co/NJiNr2xWjd pic.twitter.com/XwdzYXX3wY
— Rene Magritte (@artistmagritte) August 28, 2022
Wireframes:
Henri Matisse (1869 -1954)
Self Portrait
1944 pic.twitter.com/EYnsmITQCG— @_rt* (@literatura_rte) August 27, 2022
Sports activities Desk
“Why Aggressive Chess Is as Vicious as 10 Rounds in a Boxing Ring” [Inside Hook]. “I’ve competed bodily all my life. I’ve hyperextended knees, and had my nostril realigned in high-school wrestling. Boxing gloves and a 300-pound hockey defenseman have bruised my ribs. I broke two fingers on one play, ultimately zone at a pick-up flag soccer recreation (dropped it!). The aggression of chess pales to none of this. Chess is in-close preventing, elbows and knees, pushing and shoving. It’s pulling the man’s jersey over his head and punching. It’s a knife struggle in a telephone sales space. You possibly can’t conceal.”
Ebook Nook
A profitable system:
has it occurred to thomas that he is likely to be the issue pic.twitter.com/eRBoSO5A2H
— Janna (@_janna_g) August 28, 2022
Though possibly I ought to have filed this below “Zeitgeist Watch.”
Gunz
Effectively-regulated militia:
On this video a person in San Antonio will get out of his automobile and factors a gun at a girl who unintentionally lower him off on the freeway.
Texas has extra deadly street rage shootings than another state by important margin due to its lax gun legal guidelines. #txlege pic.twitter.com/DaX8B6Hof0
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) August 26, 2022
Personally, I don’t want to regulate my private danger evaluation about driving in Texas. However others may!
Zeitgeist Watch
After which they grew up:
To get the youngsters to eat eggs, I might scribble their names on the eggs, and inform them that the hen had laid that exact egg only for them, and had insisted that the egg be consumed by the kid in query. They dutifully ate these eggs for years.
— Fesshole 🧻 (@fesshole) August 27, 2022
Information of the Wired
I don’t know the place that is from, however I want I may do it:
Simply get pleasure from pic.twitter.com/BR4ntab5Ec
— Lacan (@Lacan1903) August 28, 2022
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Contact data for vegetation: Readers, be at liberty to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn how to ship me a examine if you’re allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn how to ship me photos of vegetation. Greens are wonderful! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary vegetation! In order for you your deal with to seem as a credit score, please place it at the beginning 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) right here. From TH:
TH writes: “This Scabiosa graces the grounds of the Sherman Library and Gardens in Corona Del Mar (Newport Seaside), California. Apparently, it’s a member of the honeysuckle household. (Wikipedia claims, and it sounds possible, that ‘the frequent identify ‘scabious’ comes from the herb’s conventional utilization as a people drugs to deal with scabies, an sickness that causes a extreme itching sensation’).”
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