By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
California Thrasher, Coal Creek OSP, San Mateo, California, United States.
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Biden Administration
“President Biden’s current health summary” (memo) [Whitehouse.gov]. On Biden’s gait:
But what does “an extremely detailed neurologic exam” mean? What tests were done? NYU lists these “Common Neurological Tests”: Cerebral Angiogram, CT Myelogram, CT Scans, Nerve Conduction Studies, Nerve Conduction Velocity, Lumbar Puncture, MRI Scans, and a 5-part Neurological Examination, involving “mental status, cranial nerves, motor function, sensory function, and reflexes.” Were any of these tests performed on Biden? In particular, Biden has had Covid. We know that Covid, and especially Long Covid, has neurological effects. Has he been tested for them?
Not knowing what he said, he said it:
On day one, our Administration inherited a nation reeling from a pandemic, and decades when jobs were shipped overseas and communities were being left behind.
Thanks in part to my Investing in America agenda, we're seeing investments, jobs, and pride coming back home.
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 13, 2023
Paragraph one: Biden “inherited” a pandemic. Paragraph two: Pandemic erased, good job.
“Trans model Rose Montoya goes topless during White House Pride party after meeting Biden” [New York Post]. There is a photo, which I will not include. I like to think I’m not a prude, but this maxim applies: “I really don’t mind what people do, so long as they don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.” Horses still getting their nerves under control, I think.
2024
I guess it’s time for the Countdown Clock!
“Poll: Eight in 10 Democratic primary voters want Joe Biden to debate” [USA Today]. “Eight in 10 Democratic primary voters say in a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll they would like to see a series of Democratic debates during the 2024 campaign. That includes an overwhelming 72% of those supporting President Joe Biden. But the odds of that actually happening are as close to zero as you can get in politics. Biden has expressed no interest in participating and the Democratic National Committee says it won’t sponsor any. History is on their side. ‘As you know, no incumbent R [Republican] or D [Democrat] have done debates,’ Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, said in an email. Incumbents generally see no advantage to risking a misstep or to giving their challenger such a significant platform. Biden’s claim to the nomination hasn’t been seriously threatened, but the findings underscore his need to consolidate and energize the Democratic base. In the poll, 58% of Democrats support Biden for the nomination while 15% back Kennedy and 6% back Marianne Williamson; 21% are undecided.” • Pretty amazing stat for Williamson, given she gets almost no coverage.
* * * “What to know about Trump’s court appearance” [CNN]. “Donald Trump will appear in a federal courthouse in Miami Tuesday afternoon for an unprecedented and historic court appearance as the first former president to face federal charges in US history. Trump is expected to be taken into custody and placed under arrest by US Marshals and arraigned during a 3 p.m. ET court hearing before a magistrate judge. He’s expected to plead not guilty to the charges. Special counsel Jack Smith charged Trump in a 37-count indictment last week, alleging that the former president mishandled classified documents brought to his Mar-a-Lago resort and engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. Trump’s aide, Walt Nauta, was also charged in the indictment and is expected to appear in court alongside the former president.” • 37 charges because there’s one charge per document ffs.
“Inside the Implosion of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Legal Team” [Rolling Stone]. “Despite all the tumult, [Boris] Epshteyn remains at Trump’s side as other names fall by the wayside. Since last year, numerous lawyers and others close to Trump have urged him to sideline Epshteyn, if not dump the counselor altogether. “Trump has put a lot of trust in Boris [in his post-presidency],” says one source close to the ex-president. ‘People trying to convince the [former] president to get rid of Boris has very often had the opposite intended effect.’ … Amid the departures, Trump and his close advisers have been hunting for seasoned attorneys, in and also outside of Florida, to join his defense in the classified documents case, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. But the dream team has yet to materialize. Multiple well-known Florida lawyers have recently been approached, though several promptly refused the chance to rep Trump in this particular case.” • You’d think there’s be some lawyer out there willing to take an Espionage Act case to the Supreme Court — this Supreme Court — and win.
On the pearl-clutching about secret information:
It's a giant farce for media/political operatives to pretend they're so deeply troubled by "improper dissemination" of Highly Classified National Security Information when exactly this kind of information gets "improperly disseminated" every single day and no one even bats an eye pic.twitter.com/Wt04owoZMk
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 12, 2023
Quite right. Secrets — keeping them, access to them — is social capital everywhere in the Beltway.
* * * “‘First of its kind’ Illinois law will penalize libraries that ban books” [Associated Press]. “Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday signed into law a bill that he says will make Illinois the first state in the nation to outlaw book bans. Illinois public libraries that restrict or ban materials because of ‘partisan or doctrinal’ disapproval will be ineligible for state funding as of Jan. 1, 2024, when the new law goes into effect. ‘We are not saying that every book should be in every single library,’ said Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, who is also the state librarian and was the driving force behind the legislation. ‘What this law does is it says, let’s trust our experience and education of our librarians to decide what books should be in circulation.'” • Pritzker and his apparatus seem adept at hopping on board the controversy du jour (not that I disagree with the legislation). I think if Biden throws a cog, Pritzker would — after a decent interval — throw his
guthat in the ring.“Pritzker delivers ‘The Office’-themed Northwestern commencement address — with Steve Carell in audience” [Chicago Sun-Times]. “Just after receiving an honorary degree from his alma mater, Pritzker offered up a 23-minute address full of personal stories about parenting and governing. He paired his tips with quotes from the popular sitcom, like the character Jim Halpert on being a dad of two: “Having a baby is exhausting. Having two babies — now that’s just mean.'” • Puff piece. Is there anything here I missed?!
“Jack Dorsey: the reason I’m backing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” [Unherd]. “Speaking on the Breaking Points podcast, Dorsey argued that Kennedy was ‘focused on peace and ending all these wars’ as well as being committed to ending ‘regulatory capture and the military industrial complex.’ Dorsey explained that he was impressed by the Democratic challenger’s ‘intimate knowledge’ of these issues, which Kennedy addressed with curiosity and a ‘deep sense of humanity.’ RFK Jr.s position on vaccines was not raised directly, but Dorsey noted that he had an ‘edge.’ ‘He has no fear in exploring topics that are a little bit controversial and in the future,’ the tech entrepreneur added.”
“Spasmodic dysphonia: What RFK Jr.’s voice condition means for his campaign” [Washington Examiner]. “Spasmodic dysphonia is exceedingly rare, affecting one in 100,000, according to Cleveland Clinic estimates. The disorder affects the muscles in the larynx, colloquially known as the voice box, by preventing the vocal cords from vibrating in a way that produces a normal speech pattern…. ‘Spasmodic dysphonia causes voice breaks during speaking and can make the voice sound tight, strained, or breathy,’ according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. ‘In more severe cases, spasms may occur on every word, making a person’s speech very difficult to understand.’… A candidate’s voice is a key indicator of success on the campaign trail. While some analysts point to the high-pitched voices of females as a reason for their underrepresentation in elected office, vocal tonality has been found to affect the viability of both male and female candidates. An article published in Political Psychology in 2015 found that male and female voters have a greater preference for lower-pitched voices in both controlled scientific environments and real-world elections….. Of those who have signaled their support for RFK Jr.’s bid, 20% support him because of the Kennedy family name, hoping that he will carry on the legacy of his father and uncle. Only 12% of would-be Kennedy voters say they support his policy opinions, according to the CNN poll.”
“Marianne Williamson: Democrats Need a “Genuine Economic Alternative” to Beat the GOP in 2024″ [Jacobin]. Williamson: “The Democratic electorate has become deeply codependent in its relationship to the DNC [Democratic National Committee] and the Democratic leadership in a way that, number one, you don’t see on the Republican side, and number two, wasn’t true when I was growing up. When Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy said they were going to primary Lyndon Johnson, nobody said they shouldn’t or couldn’t or even thought it was odd. Even when Teddy Kennedy said he was going to primary Jimmy Carter. Nobody thought, ‘Oh, how dare he?’ That narrative hadn’t been created yet. It’s really a reversion to a time one hundred years ago when a bunch of men sat around a table smoking their cigars, thinking that they had the right — that they were entitled — to determine who the candidate should be, which to me is particularly outrageous because the presumption there is, ‘They got this.’ And if anything has been proven over the last few decades, it’s that they don’t got this. The idea that they know better, the idea that we should go, ‘Oh, they know better,’ is particularly absurd in today’s world.” • And yesterday:
“Justice, justice thou shalt pursue” #Marianne2024 pic.twitter.com/lzjIHoEj3X
— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) June 12, 2023
“Cornel West Should Not Be Running for President” [Woan Jalsh, The Nation]. “[A] weird animus seemed to drive his attacks on our first Black president.” Our? “West tried to frame his opposition as a universalist defense of poor and working-class people. They didn’t get enough help from Obama’s Wall Street–adjacent administration, I admit. But calling the president “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats” was awful.'” • “Awful” in what sense? Like an awful truth? Pearl-clutching played at the professional level.
* * * “Opinion This blue-state election compact could create a constitutional crisis” [WaPo]. “Without fanfare, Minnesota’s governor signed legislation last month that would award the state’s 10 presidential electors to the national popular-vote winner even if he or she lost Minnesota. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact purports to take effect once states carrying 270 electoral votes (the minimum needed to win the presidency) have agreed to its terms. The aim is to replace the electoral college with an improvised popular-vote system for electing presidents without amending the Constitution. Minnesota’s move means that 16 states and D.C., controlling 205 electoral votes, are now parties to the compact. Michigan’s Democratic-controlled legislature is also set to vote on the compact. If the Great Lakes State becomes the 17th to approve it, compact member states will control 220 electoral votes, bringing them more than 80 percent of the way to 270.” Yikes. And: “No states that have joined the compact to date have exited it. But as the compact presses into more competitive states like Michigan, it could face defections if there is partisan turnover in the state legislature. That means the U.S. system for choosing presidents could swing back and forth based on elections in one or two states.”
“White House press secretary violated Hatch Act, government watchdog says” [NBC]. “White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre violated a law intended to prevent federal employees from using their offices to influence elections when she repeatedly referred to ‘mega MAGA Republicans’ in the run-up to the 2022 midterms, a government watchdog agency said. In a letter first shared with NBC News, the Office of Special Counsel determined that Jean-Pierre’s choice of words in referring to Republican candidates violated the Hatch Act. ‘Because Ms. Jean‐Pierre made the statements while acting in her official capacity, she violated the Hatch Act prohibition against using her official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election,’ Ana Galindo‐Marrone, who leads the agency’s Hatch Act Unit, wrote in a letter Wednesday…. Despite having found Jean-Pierre in violation of the law, the Office of Special Counsel ‘decided to close this matter without further action,’ [because of course] Galindo‐Marrone wrote in last week’s letter to Protect the Public’s Trust, noting that the White House counsel’s office ‘did not at the time believe that Ms. Jean‐Pierre’s remarks were prohibited.’ ‘We have decided not to pursue disciplinary action and have instead issued Ms. Jean‐Pierre a warning letter,’ Galindo‐Marrone wrote.” • To be fair, Kelly Anne Conway, Trump’s White House counsellor, also violated the Hatch Act.
Trump Legacy
“Newsom offers surprising response to Trump indictment” [FOX]. “Hannity asked what his relationship was like with Trump when he was in the White House. Newsom said the two engaged in a politically-unique cooperation during the coronavirus pandemic, with the-top Democratic governor praising Trump. ‘I didn’t have a closed fist, I had an open hand. We actually had an incredible relationship during COVID’ Newsom said. ‘He was incredible – he played no politics during COVID with California – none whatsoever. It’s a fact.’ The governor said that some in his own party criticized him for declining to attack Trump during the pandemic.”
Democrats en Déshabillé
Patient readers, it seems that people are actually reading the back-dated post! But I have not updated it, and there are many updates. So I will have to do that. –lambert
I have moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Party (“the Democrat Party is a rotting corpse that can’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated post, to which I will periodically add material, summarizing the addition here in a “live” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It turns out that defining the Democrat Party is, in fact, a hard problem. I do think the paragraph that follows is on point all the way back to 2016, if not before:
The Democrat Party is the political expression of the class power of PMC, their base (lucidly explained by Thomas Frank in Listen, Liberal!). It follows that the Democrat Party is as “unreformable” as the PMC is unreformable; if the Democrat Party did not exist, the PMC would have to invent it. If the Democrat Party fails to govern, that’s because the PMC lacks the capability to govern. (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” of course.) Second, all the working parts of the Party reinforce each other. Leave aside characterizing the relationships between elements of the Party (ka-ching, but not entirely) those elements comprise a network — a Flex Net? An iron octagon? — of funders, vendors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with assets in the press and the intelligence community.
Note, of course, that the class power of the PMC both expresses and is limited by other classes; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial model’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to mind. Suck up, kick down.
* * *
#COVID19
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort.
Resources, United States (Local): 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).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful 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, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Look for the Helpers
Not Covid-related, but a reminder that some doctors remain humane. The whole thread is worth reading in full:
He wanted a glass of wine. A red. But not just any red. A Cabernet Sauvignon, dry but not too dry.
Fortunately we have similar tastes. I picked out a familiar label.
— Sarah Lungaro, MD (@lungareaux) June 9, 2023
And:
Some days you figure out a difficult diagnosis, some days you find the perfect treatment, some days you have an incredible result.
But some days, you just go across the street to buy wine at 7:45AM. Because that’s what your patient needs. And maybe what your soul needs as well.
— Sarah Lungaro, MD (@lungareaux) June 9, 2023
“‘My silence is not for sale’: Bellingham doctor fired for COVID concerns refuses $2 million settlement” [KING5]. “In March of 2020, Lin posted a video critical of PeaceHealth administrators for not having proper protective gear or protocols in place to keep patients and staff safe. Shortly thereafter, he was fired. ‘It was kind of humiliating, in a way. You feel like an outcast,’ he said. Lin filed a lawsuit claiming wrongful termination, saying the hospital accused him of ‘posting misinformation’ and creating a ‘toxic environment.’ Three years later his lawyers told him he should settle the suit for $2 million, but Lin refused. He believes the hospital should publicly admit wrongdoing, especially since, he says, it eventually ended up instituting much of what Lin requested. ‘It’s like a bully out there terrorizing people. Unless the bully acknowledges what he did wrong, you never solve the problem,’ says Lin. PeaceHealth spokesperson Beverly Mayhew tells KING 5 the hospital ‘can’t comment specifically on active litigation, however, it’s important to emphasize that patient and caregiver safety is and always has been, our top priority. This commitment drives all clinical decision-making at PeaceHealth.’ For Lin, walking away from $2 million is just the next step in his march toward justice. ‘Taking the money would just say that it’s OK for corporations to just pay people off to be silent,’ Lin said. ‘My silence is not for sale.’ Lin’s attorneys dropped him, so he is currently seeking new representation.”
* * * Names matter:
Not covid-cautious, not covid-conscious, but a secret third thing
— xoxo, ponzischemes (@pxnzischemes) June 11, 2023
I don’t know why the third thing that one might, er, “identify as” needs to be “secret,” but I do agree that “Because I’m Covid cautious” isn’t the best answer to “Why are you wearing a mask?” “Because I’m a member of The Order Of Spun Woven Fabric” isn’t all that great either. Perhaps there’s an alternative. Readers?
* * * I file this here with some hesitation:
A lady at Home Depot told my four kids to take their masks off and my 3yo responded by calling her a “human butt cheek”
— Molly (@MamaWeasleyy) June 11, 2023
Some hesitation here too:
every time some dude decides to harasses me for wearing a mask indoors i tell them COVID can cause erectile dysfunction & that my boyfriend & i learned it the hard way. their face & the way they back off is priceless every fucking time
— ⭑ (@stargirlheaven) June 12, 2023
Maskstravaganza
We’ve regressed:
.@Michael_hoerger history can teach us a lot. A decade ago, the US Dept of Labor used to explain the big difference between surgical masks & N95s. They also explained how surgical masks would be ineffective protection for viruses like SARS. @AbraarKaran.https://t.co/9Ucdqc9YtE pic.twitter.com/o1pO9Vhjkc
— Nicolas Smit (@PPEtoheros) June 11, 2023
We also gave a corrupt and despicable public health system jurisdiction over an engineering problem, already solved in industry. And speaking of corrupt and despicable, I present the Brownnose Institute–
“Forest fires and n95 masking” [Vinay Prasad’s Observations and Thoughts]. The deck: “Masking without evidence is an untreated mental illness plaguing public health.” Commentary:
If a doctor says you're *mentally ill* for *not wanting to breathe in wildfire smoke*, maybe his many, many similar takes on masks and the nature of evidence and mental health about the pandemic can be considered less than compelling. pic.twitter.com/CR5XEqWnVB
— T. Ryan Gregory (@TRyanGregory) June 11, 2023
I love the part where Prasad says breathing in wildfire smoke is “a choice.” You gotta admire his commitment to the bit! Methodologically, however, Prasad just volunteered to be the control in a parachute RCT! And his article is a fine example of epistemic tresspass:
🧵EPISTEMIC TRESPASS
An example of broken terminology, courtesy of inept empire builders.
Early on in COVID, we heard "epistemic trespass" a lot. Someone – maybe a scientist, but just as often an engineer, a lawyer, a parent – would question an assumption about COVID…
— Mark Ungrin @mark_ungrin@fediscience.org (@Mark_Ungrin) June 12, 2023
Masking is an engineering problem (including social engineering). Doctors should never have been involved at all (unless in cooperation with aerosol scientists).
Covid is Airborne
“Viral emissions into the air and environment after SARS-CoV-2 human challenge: a phase 1, open label, first-in-human study” [The Lancet]. A challenge study of pre-alpha wild-type SARS-CoV-2. From the Summary: “We aimed to correlate viral emissions, viral load in the upper respiratory tract, and symptoms, longitudinally, in participants who were experimentally infected with SARS-CoV-2…. Two individuals emitted 86% of airborne virus, and the majority of airborne virus collected was released on 3 days. Individuals who reported the highest total symptom scores were not those who emitted most virus. Very few emissions occurred before the first reported symptom (7%) and hardly any before the first positive lateral flow antigen test (2%)…. We observed that a minority of participants were high airborne virus emitters, giving support to the notion of superspreading individuals or events. Our data implicates the nose as the most important source of emissions.” • Hmm. I wish I could say that Omicron was the same, but I don’t see how that can be done. Readers?
“Covid moves like smoke”:
If only Covid were visible… That would be a good use case for Apple’s VR headset.
On “diffused responsibility”:
The thing is they just don't want to.
It doesn't matter if you prove it's airborne.
It doesn't matter if you prove respirators work.
It doesn't matter if you prove it's still dangerous.— tern (@1goodtern) June 11, 2023
Note, however, “they.”
“Building a PC Fan Corsi-Rosenthal Box” [Joey Fox, It’s Airborne]. “The Box Fan Corsi-Rosenthal box was the original DIY air cleaner, known for its cost-effectiveness and effectiveness in cleaning the air. However, it may not be suitable for all environments. To address this limitation, the Clean Air Brigade on Twitter introduced an innovative solution using a parallel array of PC fans. These fans operate quietly and, although a single fan alone may not provide substantial air purification, when combined in parallel, they offer the most effective method for achieving a high clean air delivery rate while maintaining a low noise profile. The main issue with the PC Fan CR boxes is that they are much more difficult to build and require more parts to purchase. Here’s how I did it.” • I could file this under “Look for the Helpers” too! (I’m too lazy to look for it now, but I believe Rosenthal compared Classical CR boxes to PC CR boxes, and concluded their efficacy was comparable.)
Censorship and Propaganda
“White House sends guidance mandating face masks, social distancing for unvaccinated at ‘College Athlete Day'” [FOX]. The email was sent out by mistake. However, FOX includes this quote: “There is just no evidence that they make any difference. Full stop,” Tom Jefferson, the study’s lead author, said in an interview. When asked specifically about fitted N95 masks in health care settings, Jefferson said: ‘It makes no difference – none of it.'” • “The study” is, of course, the infamous Cochraine “fool’s gold” standard study, debunked. Cochrane itself had to rebuke Jefferson for tendentiously distorting the conclusions of his own study, specifically this quote.
Variants
“The Rise of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Omicron Subvariant Pathogenicity” [Cureus]. From the Abstract: “During the COVID-19 pandemic, variants of the Betacoronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the etiologic agent of COVID-19 disease, progressively decreased in pathogenicity up to the Omicron strain. However, the case fatality rate has increased from Omicron through each major Omicron subvariant (BA.2/BA.4, BA.5, XBB.1.5) in the United States of America. World data also mirror this trend. We show that the rise of Omicron pathogenicity is exponential, and we have modeled the case fatality rate of the next major subvariant as 0.0413, 2.5 times that of the Alpha strain and 60% of the original Wuhan strain which caused the greatest morbidity and mortality during the pandemic.”
Sequelae
“The emergence of multi-drug-resistant bacteria causing healthcare-associated infections in COVID-19 patients: a retrospective multi-centre study” [Journal of Hospital Infection]. “Our results reveal a striking association between healthcare-associated bacterial infections as an important complication of COVID-19 and fatal outcomes.” • Sometime I have to put on my yellow waders and look at nosocomial infection. It seems to me that people with an awful lot of power over healthcare policy — big hospitals — are doing a pretty bad job at a task that should be central-to-mission.
Treatment
“Something Awful”
Lambert here: I’m getting the feeling that the “Something Awful” might be a sawtooth pattern — variant after variant — that averages out to a permanently high plateau. Lots of exceptionally nasty sequelae, most likely deriving from immune dysregulation (says this layperson). To which we might add brain damage, including personality changes therefrom.
* * *
Elite Maleficence
They know:
Elon knows the importance of air filtration and measuring CO2 indoors. And I want these airborne mitigations not to remain only in the elite or in Davos. https://t.co/HMJ9yO7tvm pic.twitter.com/ADP7VblS2x
— Lara (@Iamgoingtosleep) June 10, 2023
They just don’t want you to know. Hence the enormous propaganda effort, in which the hegemonic factions of the PMC gleefully participate, having engineered it. So committed to the bit they don’t wear masks at their conferences, and create superspreading events!
Hospital Infection Control preparing to whack more patients. From Canada:
This year's winning poster at the 🇨🇦 National Infection Prevention & Control Conference.
"Unmasking The Future"#ipac2023 .@IPACCanada pic.twitter.com/FP7rDBFGZM
— Barry Hunt – #DavosSafe (@BarryHunt008) June 10, 2023
The mask — a “Baggy Blue,” naturally naturellement — is hanging off the “E” in “FUTURE,” at right.
Case Data
NOT UPDATED From BioBot wastewater data from June 5:
Lambert: Oh no….
For now, I’m going to use this national wastewater data as the best proxy for case data (ignoring the clinical case data portion of this chart, which in my view “goes bad” after March 2022, for reasons as yet unexplained). At least we can spot trends, and compare current levels to equivalent past levels.
Variants
NOT UPDATED From CDC, June 10:
Lambert here: Looks to like XBB.1.16 and now XBB.1.16 are outcompeting XBB.1.9, but XBB.1.5 has really staying power. I sure hope the volunteers doing Pangolin, on which this chart depends, don’t all move on the green fields and pastures new (or have their access to facilities cut by administrators of ill intent).
CDC: “As of May 11, genomic surveillance data will be reported biweekly, based on the availability of positive test specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring every two weeks. 2. occurring twice a week; semiweekly.” Looks like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to worry about. Time will tell. Looks like the Walgreens variants page isn’t updating.
Covid Emergency Room Visits
NOT UPDATED From CDC NCIRD Surveillance, from June 3:
NOTE “Charts and data provided by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the past year, using a rolling 52-week period.” So not the entire pandemic, FFS (the implicit message here being that Covid is “just like the flu,” which is why the seasonal “rolling 52-week period” is appropriate for bothMR SUBLIMINAL I hate these people so much. Notice also that this chart shows, at least for its time period, that Covid is not seasonal, even though CDC is trying to get us to believe that it is, presumably so they can piggyback on the existing institutional apparatus for injections.
Positivity
From Walgreens, June 12:
0.1%.
Deaths
NOT UPDATED Death rate (Our World in Data), from June 7:
Lambert here: Theatre of the absurd. I can believe that deaths are low; I cannot believe they are zero, and I cannot even believe that all doctors signing death certificates have agreed to make it so. Looks to me like some administrative minimizer at WHO put the worst intern in charge of the project. And thanks, Johns Hopkins of the $9.32 billion endowment, for abandoning this data feed and passing responsibility on to the clown car at WHO.
Total: 1,166,713 – 1,166,663 = 50 (50 * 365 = 18,250 deaths per year, today’s YouGenicist™ number for “living with” Covid (quite a bit higher than the minimizers would like, though they can talk themselves into anything. If the YouGenicist™ metric keeps chugging along like this, I may just have to decide this is what the powers-that-be consider “mission accomplished” for this particular tranche of death and disease).
Excess Deaths
Excess deaths (The Economist), published June 13:
Lambert here: Still some encouragement!
Lambert here: Based on a machine-learning model. (The CDC has an excess estimate too, but since it ran forever with a massive typo in the Legend, I figured nobody was really looking at it, so I got rid it. )
• Changing the baseline in Europe:
Another COVID-19 alarm bell is being toned down, this time by the European Mortality Monitoring Project (EuroMOMO). Mortality data from Spring 2023 onwards has started being incorporated in the baseline used to calculate Excess Mortality, making the pandemic the new 'normal'. 1/ https://t.co/nCNuMB4DZj pic.twitter.com/er4vNTsmz1
— Pedro Lérias (@RPLerias) June 10, 2023
• What could be the cause?
US pregnancy related mortality rate (ie the chance that a woman will die due to pregnancy related causes):
1980s: 7/ 100,000
1990s: 10/ 100,000
2010s: 17/ 100,000
2020: 23/ 100,000
2021: 33/ 100,000🤯😞
— Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) June 12, 2023
‘Tis a mystery!
Stats Watch
Inflation: “United States Core Inflation Rate” [Trading Economics]. “The annual core consumer price inflation rate in the United States, which excludes volatile items such as food and energy, eased to a 1-1/2-year low of 5.3% in May 2023, as expected, from 5.5% in the prior month.”
Small Business Optimism: “United States NFIB Business Optimism Index” [Trading Economics]. “The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index in the United States slightly increased to 89.4 in May 2023 compared to the previous month’s reading of 89.0, surpassing market expectations of 88.5. Still, the index remained below its 49-year average of 98 for the past 17 months, indicating ongoing concerns among small business owners regarding future business conditions.”
Retail: “Anchor Brewing Company ends national distribution, kills beloved beer” [SGATE]. “In an interview with SFGATE, Anchor Brewing spokesperson Sam Singer explained that the company is focusing on the California market because it accounts for 70% of its sales. Still, Singer said it was a difficult decision based on challenging economic realities the company has faced for years. ‘The inflationary impact of product costs in San Francisco is one factor,’ Singer said. ‘Couple that with a highly competitive craft beer market and a historically costly steam brewing technique. [They’ve] probably been mulling over this decision for a year. It’s not something they take lightly.’ Another big change: Anchor Brewing will no longer make its iconic holiday beer, Christmas Ale. The spice-laden winter warmer has been a brewing tradition since 1975 and something that Northern California beer lovers look forward to every November. Singer said costly brewing and packaging requirements led to the change. It’s also a time-intensive brewing process, he said.”
The Bezzle: “‘But the SEC let us go public’ and other flawed arguments in Coinbase’s defense” [Molly White]. A takedown of Coinbase talking points. or example: “‘There is no path to compliance.’ I’ll give it to them, they might be right on this one. Coinbase thinks this is an issue with the securities laws. The SEC thinks this is an issue with Coinbase. If a company went to the FDA and said ‘hello, we’d like to start selling heroin to the public for recreational use’, and the FDA said ‘no, you can’t do that’, the company could loudly complain that the FDA was not giving them a path to compliance. People would probably laugh at them.”
Tech: “Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit — and why users revolted” [The Verge]. “The short version of a long history goes like this: in April, Reddit announced new terms for its API, the tool through which developers of third-party apps access Reddit’s data. Every time you post a comment, refresh a page, search for something, or take just about any other action in an app like Apollo, the app pings an API to get the data you need. Reddit’s API has been free for many years, leading to a flourishing community of third-party tools. But Reddit finally decided it was time to charge for access, both to recoup the costs of running the API and to help the company become more profitable ahead of its planned IPO. The logic made sense to Selig; the price didn’t. Ultimately, he calculated he would have to pay Reddit $20 million a year just to keep Apollo running, which he couldn’t afford. Other developers building Reddit apps came to the same conclusion and said they would be forced to shut down. Many users decided this wasn’t a fair business deal — this was a plot to crush third-party Reddit apps. So in response, Reddit users decided to push back. The battle reached its current peak when thousands of subreddits went dark on Monday, protesting Reddit’s new API policies and how they affected everything from app developers to the on-platform tools many users rely on. Reddit’s response? It’s just business. ‘We’ll continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive,’ CEO Steve Huffman wrote during an AMA session over the weekend. ‘Unlike some of the [third-party] apps, we are not profitable.'” • Until?
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 80 Extreme Greed (previous close: 78 Extreme Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 75 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jun 13 at 1:47 PM ET.
The Gallery
“White Noise by Kathy Anne Lim” [Drawlights]. “The body of work by photographer Kathy Anne Lim focuses on themes of memory and displacement—contents of which mix absolute certainty and misty ephemerality. Her series White Noise ties in with this topic in a certain way, if you don’t know what the white mist in her photographs actually is, you might find the creeping mist mysterious and romantic. In fact it’s not, it is fumigating to repel insects in various parts of Singapore.” • A sample:
Class Warfare
“Let Them Eat Plague!” [Red Clarion]. A must-read (I missed it in January). Grab a cup of coffee. Here is the key section, from the second part of the article
Actually solving the pandemic was never in the cards for the U.S. and the rest of the capitalist world. It would have necessitated deep international cooperation, massive investment in clean air infrastructure, a persistent information campaign (and censoring of hazardous misinformation), efforts to build public trust in government, guaranteed paid leave, nationalization of key industries, and more. Basically, it would involve massively undercutting the philosophy of free market capitalism.
Instead, the explicit goal of the ruling class has been to make the pandemic simply disappear from public perception. Any reminder of the existence of a highly-transmissible, highly-dangerous, mass-disabling disease could trigger panic, or worse: organized, militant labor action. Averting this crisis required a careful campaign of culture-crafting; the people themselves needed to become convinced that there was no reason to fight. Consent for protracted mass infection needed to be manufactured.
There are three main ways this hegemonic narrative around COVID has been propagated to the public: official rhetoric, public policy, and media framing. These three facets of idea propagation feed into each other, and all three are maneuvered in various ways by the interests of capital. The process by which a hegemonic narrative is crafted in the capitalist sphere is not quite as straightforward as one might expect. It’s not a simple matter of a state propaganda department deciding on a central doctrine, issuing scripts to paid actors, and imprisoning all who dissent. There is no party line for the capitalists, no single convocation of business elites, and relatively few shadowy backroom deals. Explicit planning meetings are held — independently — among the leadership of different ruling class parties and distinct business interests, and their similar class interests lead them to similar priorities. But the way narrative unity of this sort is achieved is not through an all-powerful conspiracy. Instead, the “decision” for how to frame events arises organically from the interplay of the many individual sectors that comprise the ruling class propaganda machine.
The tone struck by what we think of as official sources sets the stage for the broader social response. This rhetoric comes from a variety of places — heads of state, government agencies, individual experts, think tanks, and other entities imbued with a sense of authority. These are voices that we are socialized to pay attention to. When they speak, they easily garner media attention. A news outlet that ignores or disputes these sources loses access to them and invites flak, thereby harming their ability to sell more news. These voices are generally in the room when policies are crafted — or crafting the policies themselves. What “the experts” say matters, and the particular experts being promoted by governments and corporations have steadily coalesced around rhetoric that minimizes the public health threat of the virus.
The first part of the article is a long popularization of Covid medical information. I could quarrel with some detail if I dug in, but it’s useful too. So what happens when the sleepers wake, coughing, one too many times? Will they wake?
“How Striking Writers Are Disrupting Hollywood Shoots” [Wall Street Journal]. “The WGA’s strike, aimed at extracting contract demands from Hollywood studios including better pay, higher residual payments and protections against artificial intelligence’s encroachment on the movie industry, has entered its guerrilla tactics phase. In the six weeks since Hollywood writers’ rooms closed, the union has interrupted or halted shoots from Los Angeles to New York with the help of fellow unions representing truck drivers, makeup artists and actors. The cat-and-mouse game between strikers and studios will determine how many films and TV shows reach living rooms and theaters across America in coming months.” • If all the supply chain unions ever got together….
News of the Wired
“In praise of blowing up your life” [Sasha’s ‘Newsletter‘]. “Generally, I think blowing up your life is a good idea. Sure, not for Cocaine Bob, who is on his fifth marriage and tenth DUI. But for the relatively sane, by the time you’re mostly ready to leave a job, or a city, or a relationship, you probably have good reason to. Status quo bias is utterly pervasive. Most people are tremendously resistant to change, capable of coming up with countless ingenious stories about why something different will be worse than what we have. We will stick with familiar pain over variance, even if we are financially and socially secure enough that we will remain safe and fed after walking away. At any given time, your motion is being constrained by an agglomeration of previous decisions made by a previous you, decisions that might have little to do with your current wants. Maybe you spent years forming habits that you just don’t enjoy anymore, or you’ve carefully curated an environment that now feels stale. All of these factors, collectively, present a bulwark against change. It’s possible to modify your life while mired in this mass of ongoing circumstance, but it’s difficult. The human default is sleepwalking. However, in a dramatically new situation, you have no choice but to act your way into being someone else. That someone might be only slightly different in the end. But, on the other hand, that someone might be much more aligned with your real and present desires and potentials. My existence really started getting good when I started blowing up my life more regularly, with a substantial eruption every couple of years.”
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wol writes: “Daffodils.”
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Unmasking the future: The Next Exit:
https://oneworldhouse.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/cliff.jpg
Wheeee!
Last Exit to Wuhan?
> “Why are you wearing a mask?”
“Because, out of concern for your health, and my health, and the health of all my neighbors and my countrymen, I want to slow asymptomatic spread of the CV.”
How would one phrase that compactly? “asymptomatic spread cautious”?
“Why are you wearing a mask?”
“Because I choose to.” No further details necessary. Shuts them right up.
That was always what I had planned to say, but no one ever dared ask me. The attitude is everything.
It’s been a few months since I was challenged (while checking out at Lowe’s) and I promptly slipped the mask off and coughed a bit toward him and stated I had COVID and was glad folks didn’t mind because the mask made it hard for me to breath. The lout backed off.
‘Because I have Covid right now (cough, cough) and don’t want to give it to other people.’
In a word, compassion. My answer, anyway.
This is a wonderful response — thank you! I will remember it.
I plan to respond with my own question. E.g., “what was your latest blood pressure reading?” Or, “how much do you weigh?” Whatever I feel genuinely curious about, upon looking at the person. Since they are asking something intrusive, it seems fine for me to do so as well.
Freedom works both ways.
I have wondered what I would say, while hopefully not escalating the situation.
Maybe I would just ignore them. One wag somewhere said their response to “why do you still wear a mask–you don’t have to” would be: “why do you wear underwear—you don’t have to”. That works on a couple of levels….. Another wag thought they would reply “it’s a free country”.
I’ve been thinking I might go the “Jesus loves you and wants you to be safe. Let us pray.” route, but I don’t know if I could keep a straight face.
I’ve had it called a “face diaper” early in the pandemic. “To clean up your sh*t” is the best response I could think of…of course much later. L’esprit d’escalier (staircase wit, when you think of what you should have said at dinner on your way up to bed)…still applies!
Love the Daffodils. When living in central France near Le Puy, while the Daffodils were in bloom people would drive into the country side, have a piq niq, take a hike etc. Before their drive home, people would cover their cars in the wonderful flowers – on the side view mirrors, the wiper blades, door knobs, antennae, etc. Lovely, simply lovely
Vive le Fleurs!
> “Why are you wearing a mask?”
Covid rots you from the inside out. Jawb one is don’t get it. Jawb two is don’t pass it on when you fail at jawb one.
And jawb three is . . . if you got it once, don’t get it again. Because each new case adds to the silent rot within.
And jawb four is . . . if you got it two times, don’t get it a third time.
And jawb five is . . . if you got it three times, please really and seriously don’t get it a fourth time.
( And given the state of your immune system by then, don’t get Lyme Disease either. That’s for extra credit).
Brother Cornel moves to the Green Party.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35pku7uXtFk
Solves the ballot line problem, at least!
Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina would keep the Dems awake at nights.
Good vid. I hope he does so, and that he runs with Stein. I can then vote for her a third time. It would be really nice to vote for a ticket with no reservations.
Sometimes I think the People’s Party is rope-a-doping the people into failed opposition, but then I remember that’s been the long time job of The Constitution.
It can be both!
The Constitution was designed to keep the little people from getting too big for their britches, as well as giving the federal government enough power to do things like build a navy, roads, and the post office, but not enough power to frighten any state from joining or longterm beget a powerful, all controlling dictatorship or oligarchy.
They were elitists, true, but they were very knowable about the Greco-Roman civilization and its destruction by the greed and. power of those elites. I suspect that they were trying for an dated version of the early Roman Republic where the senatorial class did have most of the power, but the everyone else, particularly the farmers, could them back in their proper place if needed.
The current American Republic can be compared to the late Roman Republic, maybe just before the Social War. If you want something later, maybe the Weimar Republic around 1929 just before things became really interesting, or the Russian Empire just before the Putilov Strike of 1917 in St. Petersburg that started the steps that would go the Russian Revolution.
We can blame the Founders for many things, but the current corrupt, warmongering, police state controlled by oligarchy with their uniparty, ain’t one of them. The corruption with the money as speech nonsense alone would be anathema to them. Then there are the corporations, the military, and the permanent overseas wars.
Some actually expected some occasional revolts with the phrase with Thomas Jefferson writing “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it’s natural manure.”
Those early Americans cannot be put directly into the categories of today. They were more conservative and radical than many people today might be comfortable especially with the combination. This makes using them to make a point for today’s issues is not quite as easy as one might think. Supporting both an aristocracy, not today’s oligarchy, and violent revolution against the rulers when necessary is not something one sees today. Let not forget as well the American System that came directly from the ideas of Alexander Hamilton and was used for at one hundred and fifty years to make the United States an economic giant. It would make both corporate conservatives and neoliberals extremely unhappy although not old leftists or conservatives as unhappy.
Being blunt, I think the American revolutionaries and founders would be shocked that there has not been a revolution as broadly speaking everything that helped to start that war has been happening today for decades.
The Constitution was designed to protect property(capital). All the ills you describe fall from concentration of capital, and thus are directly a result of The Constitution. The 10 amendments/Bill of Rights were not addressing mistakes, but intentional efforts in the illegal adoption of The Constitution, but by then it was simply diluting the poison, so the death took longer; now here we (or rather many of you) are. When reading Madison, take him at his word. He would have hated 99% of the commentariat here.
I agree that preserving positions and wealth of some was one of the goals. The Constitutional Convention was convened after Shays’ Rebellion, which frightened the Bostonian financial elites greatly and influenced the direction of convention. That is true, but it was only an influence with everything else that I mentioned also important and true. It is fascinating because it is such a complex story.
Even Abigail Adams was among many elite speculating in buying bad debt and enforcing it, so yeah, vulture capitalism was there at the beginning.
Jefferson was more right than he knew — the original “tyrants” were themselves revolutionaries against propertarian oligarchs redistributing land to bonded debtors, subsequent distortion of them by aristocratic historians notwithstanding. Hat tip to Michael Hudson’s “The Collapse of Antiquity” for setting this straight.
The anti-Cornel West piece read like a paean to the duopoly. Third parties are bad, because they hand elections to the Republicans. Primaries are bad, because they give the appearance of a party in disarray. People should shut up and vote for whatever warmongering, healthcare-opposing, status quo preserving, corporate shill the party decides to offer them. Because it’s that or Trump.
I was quite anti-Ralph Nader as well back in the Gore days. Now I think he was right all along.
YMMV, but here in Hawaii the Libertarians generally outpoll the Greens, so you could argue that third parties help the Dems.
In a political discussion with a loyal, union-member Democrat, he criticized me for promoting Bernie Sanders, then running in the D primary. Essentially, he said “Why don’t you stop the dissent and line up behind the establishment nominee?”
I had to remind my friend that this is at least nominally a democracy, a system that encourages dissent — particularly in the primary — and includes dissent in the governing process. If he wants a monarchy, I said, I suppose he could lobby for that, but unless he wanted to abandon democracy, I’d continue to dissent.
He was silent, but I doubt this conversation changed his mind.
…which reminds me: Most political discussions I’ve witnessed are versions of the game “Ain’t it awful” (cf. Eric Berne’s Games People Play), not authentic discussions or debates. People prefer the reinforcement of tribal loyalty to anything like genuine thinking about public policy issues. Currently the “Anti-Trump” tribe dominates my “liberal” friends’ conversations, while the “Pro-Trump” people either change their tune or withdraw.
Personally, I don’t blame Trump (the anti-Obama) voters…but none of my “liberal” friends want to talk about what’s so awful a majority of voters wanted to sabotage government as Obama left it.
“Christian” billionaire Phillip Anschutz even sponsors “Braver Angels” (previously “Better Angels”), a seminar in which participants join team blue vs. team red (no team green, or purple, or any other team) and participated in a carefully managed “debate” ….I went to one of these, and the “teams” included hired lobbyists lying about their affiliation. Bizarre, but true.
US pregnancy related mortality rate...tis a mystery!
PORTLAND, Ore.— The United States allows the use of 85 pesticides that have been banned or are being phased out in the European Union, China or Brazil, according to a peer-reviewed study published today by the academic journal Environmental Health.
https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/united-states-uses-85-pesticides-outlawed-in-other-countries-2019-06-06/
Add to that the use of GMO’s in food…must just be a coincidence…Old News
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/genetically-modified-soy_b_544575
The 2020 maternal mortality rate here in Texas was 72.7 per hundred thousand, more than twice the national rate.
I have a t-shirt that says “surviving pregnancy is a human right.”
“Instead, the explicit goal of the ruling class has been to make the pandemic simply disappear from public perception.”
Just as in Ukraine, narrative takes precedence over brute reality. Lots of that going around in elite circles these days: COVID, the war, China, the trans industry. When nothing means anything, power will dictate meaning. Even to it’s own detriment.
“Well, at least the train is running on-time, and they promised us that next stop would be camp– it’ll be fine! I don’t particularily like this “one-suitcase” rule though… …do you think the house will be OK while we’re gone?”
I have added orts and scraps, including material on Williamson, RFK, West, and Pritzer, besides Trump and Biden.
Don’t worry about the high-pitched voices of females, Lambert. Vocal fry is on the ups, quoth Science!
I remember hearing vocal fry in a television advertisement perhaps 30 years ago. Your link is from 2011, and I don’t know whether vocal fry is now part of normal American English, or whether it will over time “age out.”
But I don’t think “spasmodic dysphonia” is the same as vocal fry.
“However, the case fatality rate has increased from Omicron through each major Omicron subvariant (BA.2/BA.4, BA.5, XBB.1.5) in the United States of America.”
The idea that succeeding strains of Omicron are less dangerous is ridiculous.
It is interesting to see that XBB (all strains) is now utterly dominant.
I’ve had a nasty XBB rash on my face and chest for four weeks. I’m ready for it to go away now.
“The idea that succeeding strains of Omicron are less dangerous is ridiculous.”
As long as Covid retains the ability to be transmitted asymptomatically, before the disease incapacitates you or symptoms ward off others, and absent appropriate changes in social behavior there appears to be no strong evolutionary pressures to become either more or less virulent. It’s a crap shoot.
Q: ” Why are you wearing a mask?”
A: ” Because I discovered I get almost no colds and sore throats because of wearing a mask.”
If that answer doesn’t satisfy the questioner, then the questioner is probably a Typhoid Mary plague-spreader and the best answer is probably ” because mind your own business and keep your distance.”
And the best follow up answer after that if the Typhoid Mary plague-spreader approaches aggressively is probably a face-full of bear spray which you have wisely decided to never ever leave home without.
Bear spray. You could call the group the “Proud Maskers.”
Or maybe the ” Self Protectors”.
” You! Will not! Infect! Me! ”
” You will not infect me.”
” You will not infect us.”
That could be a protest chant for covid realists in general in demonstrations against the various flavors of covid spreaders, whether WHO or CDC or Biden or MAGA or Walensky or otherwise.
Though having caught up on the upthread comments, I think . . . ” Because I feel like it.” with a smile in your voice is a good answer.
” But why do you feel like it?”
” Because.”
” Because why?”
” Because why? Just because . . . “
I too have noticed “no colds” since the beginning of “physical distancing” in early 2020. I used to get an annoying cold at least once a year, that would migrate between head and lungs for multiple weeks before resolving. None of that since the lockdown.
I will continue to mask even if sterilizing vaccines for the CV become widespread and community spread of this particular virus is suppressed. There’s too much else, other pathogens and mutagens, in the air.
“Because I have tuberculosis”?
“Because I have smallpox”?
Of course the results of Biden’s “tests” are going to be touted as “perfectly fine” by White House officials in public. Their job is to maintain the veneer of normalcy over the president’s increasingly obvious inadequacies. The same thing happened during the Kennedy administration, with the fact that Kennedy had Addison’s disease was hidden from the public for years.
Not only does the emperor (Biden) have no clothes, he is also obviously losing his mind.
At what point do we say . . . ” The clothes have no emperor.” . . . ?
If someone holds Democratic Primaries with or without DNC assistance or permission, I will vote for Better-than-Biden, if there is one. State Democrat parties could organize State primaries in whatever states they want to. With or without National Democrat permission. Enough National Democrat obstruction may catalyze some State Democratic parties in secceding from the Democratic Party and becoming Separate State Democrat Parties. Enough such Separate State Democrat Parties could form a Union of State Democrat Parties and run candidates designed to tear down and destroy the National Democratic Party and its state-level accomplices and affiliates.
In the election I will vote for Biden or whomever. I voted for Trashy Trump the first time and the first time was enough. It kept Clinton out of office and that is all it had to do. ( If the Dems nominate Hillary again, I may vote for Trump or West or whatever. Certainly not Clinton.)
Sure. The purpose of a presidential primary is to allocate/bind delegates to the party national convention. Noting stops you from holding your own national convention with delegates awarded any way you like, though if you are going to use a state government run election system you are going to have to get state government approval. That’s sort of what Lincoln did in 1864 — he didn’t want to be captured by the radical wing of the Republican Party so created his own National Union Party which held its convention in Baltimore. That convention had a battle over recognizing delegations from “seceded” states, but in the end dumped radical Hamlin from the VP nomination in favor of Dem Johnson. The Rs for their part nominated Fremont once again, but when they saw they were getting nowhere gave up. Of course they would attempt a payback later by almost removing Johnson via impeachment.
I was going to come here to discuss the recent disclosure that the government harvests data on US citizens from data brokers, but the popular vote compact news is something else entirely. The data brokers know your income, your education, your home location, your credit report, and what you buy at the grocery store (among other things you pay for with a card). They can predict who you’re going to vote for to a confidence exceeding 90%. They even know if you vote, as that is also a matter of public record. Remember that lawsuit about landlords sharing rental data?
The conspiracy theorist part of my brain is on fire trying to synthesize this: suppose that there’s a new kind of redlining. Political redlining. Forget gerrymandering, what if you could force people to live where they won’t ever reach a political majority?
Redlining was often done informally by the locals, and the resistance was not always racial in nature. Blacks often could only buy a home on contract, not with a mortgage, meaning that missing even one of the overlarge payments would get you evicted and you would get nothing for even years of payments; “owners” and their families would do almost anything to keep up payments including not spending time or money keeping the house up, but working themselves to death to keep up with the payments.
Real estate developers would take advantage of this by advertising that a black family(s) was moving into a neighborhood, which was not necessarily true. Although sometimes they would find a desperate family to move into the targeted neighborhood. Since having “those” people actually did cause property values to fall because of racism, if nothing else, people would be desperate to either physically block people from moving it or (and this is what the developer would be hoping) sell their homes for vastly deflated prices. The developer would then sell the property at very inflated prices under a contract and not a mortgage. The black family would be subjected to violence, forced to make oversized payment and the local whites, whatever they did, would lose much of the value of their home.
Forcing two groups of people to fight each other for your personal profit is an American tradition. Encouraging racism for profit is a tradition as well. And the goal of having your own house, farm, or business has been an American thing for centuries.
Much of this blue/red divide is manufactured as is racism. It becomes self-perpetuating with needing only an occasional push from the elites to maintain it for their power, status, and profit. I can see politicos, corporations, and the police all using this redlining.
It is called “Block Busting” and a Realtor tried it on the block where I grew up.
Unsuccessfully, largely due to my Father.
>>>“Anchor Brewing Company ends national distribution, kills beloved beer”
Well, it is good news for me that I will be able to drink Anchor Steam as it’s light. However, it is still real beer and not garbage Budweiser or Coors light.
Still, what of business decision is it to kill off most of a company’s market area? Yes, Know California is 70% of the sales, but I believe you could still get it in the rest of the country. Isn’t the goal of most companies to increase, or at least maintain, market share? Is Sapporo going to junk Southern California, just because most of its California’s sales must be in the San Francisco Bay Area?
Unless they were actively loosing money in selling both Anchor Steam and the Christmas beer, it just does not make any sense. This is what happens when they sell a company to those outside investor creatures who don’t love the company or its product.
” Isn’t the goal of most companies to increase”
When I was in college, Coors was not sold east of Kansas. Growing up on the Missouri-Kansas border, we could drink 3.2% Coors by the pitcher at the Pizza Hut on the Kansas side when we turned 18. Fast times. That was back in the day that Verne Miller busted people drinking cocktails on planes flying over Kansas.
A friend of mine and I drove together back East a couple of times, and we always loaded cases of Coors in the trunk because it was quite the thing then.
In our capitalist culture, scarcity amounts to a bump in the demand curve if you play it right.
So you were a real life Smoky and the Bandit?
I used to bring back Corona from Chicago to Ohio when Barton Bros (I think) were the only distributor that carried it. I turned a lot of buddies onto lime in beers.
1976 from Cornhole, Ohio to Knoxville, Iowa. 4 guys going to the dirt track sprint car nationals for a 4 day show Wednesday thru Saturday. We camped at the fairgrounds. A group of guys from further West brought a box truck full of Coor’s and sold them at the track – this wasn’t legal because it wasn’t sold there – but nobody cared.
A couple of years later when we went back we could buy some as soon as we crossed the Mississippi. We had a motor home that year so we brought 17 cases back. They sure gave us some funny looks in the grocery store. One of our guys had a Stroh’s Beer hat (Detroit) and so many at the track asked if we had some because they couldn’t get it there. We could have made a fortune going both ways.
I’m trying to remember the last time I saw Anchor Steam in NH. The local co-op used to carry it, but now there are so many good local brands. Maybe the demand ain’t what it used to be.
I wish I had a pithy answer for why I wear a mask, but I still can’t think of one although the ED answer the woman gave was a good one.
Here’s another something to chew on that I’ve been thinking about: the long-term effects of viruses.
How many viruses are out there that have long-term effects (e.g. 5+ years)? Seems like a lot to me, but we have a nation and world walking around in assumed mask-free bliss, but look at these nasty viruses and long-term effects:
*HIV infection to AIDS symptoms avg time: about 8 to 10 years from what I’ve read
*Chicken pox infection to Shingles: maybe about 50 years on average (??) although it was only 35 years for me
*Post-polio syndrome appears about 15 to 30 years after polio
*Epstein-Barr virus is now thought to be a major factor leading to multiple sclerosis (about 10 years likely from EBV infection to MS for those who get MS)
Game’s not over, that’s for sure. I’m not sure if this has been posted, but I thought this was a good two-part interview with Arijit Chakravarty: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/06/12/ddzg-j12.html
(Almost) Daily Derailment(s)…
Gotta wait– here’s an excerpt from an exchange I had a few hours ago that may
fit in well with Tech/The Bezzle (I’m sorry for the comment length, but you will like this):
The FAA wants to license pilots for future eVTOL air taxis
In its press release, the FAA highlighted that eVTOLs need separate rules for licensing pilots since they take off like helicopters but fly like airplanes. Currently, there is no aircraft in the civilian aerospace sector that is comparable, and therefore, pilots need to be familiar with both types of aircraft before they can fly eVTOLs commercially.
https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/faa-begin-licensing-air-taxi-pilots
A comment (but not mine):
There’ll be “What went wrong?” documentaries after the USA’s piloted eVTOL hype bubble really bursts… Never before in the history of aviation did private capital from SPAC-driven VCs & their billionaire friends went into aviation without knowing anything about regulations…
Anyway, when the USDOT Secretary and his office finally got a full picture of how the head of the FAA Billy Nolen did a whole lot of favors for Archer behind the scenes, he was shown the exit immediately even before finding his replacement, then Nolen of course called Archer for his CSO position, then the FAA is now attempting to appear tough in the midst of this too obvious of a corruption, so things are now going to be super challenging for Archer & Joby going forward… most people just don’t realize this yet… starting from this:
Newly proposed rules could create eVTOL pilot training hurdle
“With the release of its proposed Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR) for powered-lift pilot certification and operations, the Federal Aviation Administration has signaled that it’s not yet convinced.”
“With the public release of its proposed SFAR on June 7, the FAA has confirmed that it expects commercial pilots of winged eVTOLs carrying passengers for hire to hold a powered-lift category and instrument rating, in addition to a type rating for each powered-lift model they fly, even while already holding airplane or helicopter ratings.”
“Moreover, the FAA is proposing only a modest amount of credit for powered-lift simulator time, meaning most of the training will have to take place in the real aircraft.”
“That presents a significant challenge for the company the FAA says is on track to certify its eVTOL first, Joby Aviation, along with fast follower Archer Aviation.”
“Both of them have designed their weight-sensitive electric aircraft with only a single pilot seat and no place for an instructor”
https://theaircurrent.com/industry-strategy/faa-evtol-sfar-training-news-analysis/
I’ll add that under Nolen’s watch, both Joby and Archer received multi-million dollar contracts from the US DOD… not sure who all was involved with this.
These two companies are the leading US-based eVTOL manufactures, ones who have very-sizeable investments made in them from airlines, VC, and other investors who are dazzled by the promise of air-taxis.
And the FAA is telling them their aircraft, the ones that they are building now, hyping-up, and trying to certify for commercial-use, probably won’t fly– not as currently designed: at the least, they will need to create “trainer” models in order to accomodate flight instructors and flight examiners.
It ain’t just smoke from wildfires in the air… looks to me like some HNW investors may be smouldering. Think they can buy a congressman to fix this?
I was surprised several years ago when accompanying my sons on a middle school trip to a local movie studio that there was a movie camera drone outfit with a drone on display with a FAA registration number on it. In conversation they said they were the first drone operator to get certified by the FAA and all of their drone operators had FAA pilot certificates to be aware of air traffic control areas.
There’s a recreational category modeled on the rules for RC hobby aircraft, but for commercial / “big boy” flight you need certification under Part 107 what FAA calls remote pilot certificate with special UAS type rating.
Just wondering if Bill Ackman is going to give the Fed until the end of the weekend to refund all these retired travelers.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/travel/travelers-stranded-vacation-company-shuts-down/
>>>“Newsom offers surprising response to Trump indictment”
I still don’t like my governor, but good for him.
That trans dude baring his implants after meeting the President is funny as hell. However, as my wife would attest (if asked), I like boobs at least as much as the next guy – but – honest to God, when they’re mounted on a fella, then they don’t even give me a tingle! Moreover, while I can appreciate his cross dressing fetish means he adds to his kinks through fake boobs (and maybe even whacking his doodles), I neither share his mental illness, nor subscribe to his notions of what makes for a woman. So he can pretend to be a gal as much as he wants, and it doesn’t bother me, but I really wish he’d stop frightening the horses!
“Sometime I have to put on my yellow waders and look at nosocomial infection. It seems to me that people with an awful lot of power over healthcare policy — big hospitals — are doing a pretty bad job at a task that should be central-to-mission.”
Like what? Getting people into hospitals and then extracting every available cent from them until they die? What are they getting wrong here?
You said it better than I could.
the government should give them a bonus for helping rebalance the actuarial tables to save Social Security and Medicare.
But that would give the game away.
Stealth Jackpot doesn’t work if it isn’t stealth.
I have to ask: was “Woan Jalsh” deliberate?
Possibly referencing this:
https://twitter.com/RatioService/status/1018980872861638656
warning- strong language
https://public.substack.com/p/first-people-sickened-by-covid-19
So to me, the issue has never been did it originate in the Wuhan labs. The real issue is exactly what were they engineering there? What is this virus designed to do?
Not that it will ever be divulged, unless there is an insider leak, but no one is even asking that question.
If the goal was to make the rona disappear from public perception as Lambert’s excerpt above states, that article really isn’t going to help. That one might not get mentioned on MSDNC, but it’s going to get some traction somewhere. Bigly.
It mentions patient zero being a researcher who was a protege of Shi Zhengli. She was featured in this article from a couple years ago that I originally saw posted here at NC – https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html
The author posits that a bat coronavirus was brought to the Wuhan lab after jumping to humans who were in a cave shoveling guano, where it was studied and eventually accidentally escaped. It now appears they were pretty spot on with that theory.
That some big news there, and it jives with this article from a couple years ago, right down to the scientists involved – https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html
“Not A, not B, but a secret third thing” is a memetic sentence I have seen among the kids on Tumblr quite a lot. A and B can be factions in Game of Thrones, different fandoms, different genders, different political groups, etc etc
No idea where it comes from, or what the intended meaning is (apart from saying neither A not B while showing participation in a subculture), but to answer Lambert’s question: it needs to be secret to fit the structure of the sentence. I don’t think there is more meaning than that.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/a-secret-third-thing
Darn, i was hoping it was related to silly statistical correlations.
“I really don’t mind what people do, so long as they don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.”
So good
As a California resident for over 30 years who once stood within 15 feet of Gavin Newsom before he spoke to my Union’s (CTA– Calif. Teacher’s Association) 700 member General assembly, I am not surprised in the least that the “liberal” Gavin played pals with Trump, despite the pearl-clutching of many other Dem politicos. Don’t forget Gavin’s upbringing, when young he was practically speaking an adopted member of the Getty family, to which his dad was connected. Oligarchs know & value their own kind, like many other types. And let’s not forget that any minor “successes” Trump had in real estate and entertainment were more in the latter than the former by late life, so he is deeply connected to Hollywood and media, a Cali product that Gavin would of course support.
So, thrown out there for your consideration and comment.
I have under estimated the Biden administration. They ARE working on a solution to the global climate crisis! And in Ukraine of all places:
The Story of Nuclear Winter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuzH43J0mrY
Now if those neocons can just figure out how we can avoid the other nasty side effects, like radiation poisoning, starving to death, burying all those dead people, and re-building the world. Yeah, good to go!
/sarc
It’s getting into crunch time folks. Hang in there and root for sanity!
Apparently Bellingham doctor Lin’s legal representatives were anticipating a large payout, and when it did not show up on time they bailed. Here’s hoping he has the financial wherewithal to continue without the support of what starts to look like ambulance chasers.
Or can attract some pro-health pro bono lawyers who understand the stakes.
Perhaps the National Lawyers Guild might see an opportunity to represent something truly radical here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lawyers_Guild
‘On day one, our Administration inherited a nation reeling from a pandemic, and decades when jobs were shipped overseas and communities were being left behind.
Thanks in part to my Investing in America agenda, we’re seeing investments, jobs, and pride coming back home.’
Maybe Biden could have also said the following-
‘When I came to office, America stood at the edge of a precipice. Since then, we have taken a great leap forward.’
Thanks to my magnificent efforts and that of my superlative Cabinet, we have taken a leap forward towards a future Jackpot scenario that is nearer at any time in America’s exceptional history. Choke on these words, Honest Abe ( \ SARC ).
I put the sarcasm tag in all caps, because well things on my mind and such. I can no longer comprehend what earth the Biden administration is on. Even on the nightly news, ABC news was trying to slow roll the better inflation report from Tuesday morning. Yes inflation is still trending lower, but don’t pretend how great it appears. I’m about done with broadcast media, the US versions of it.
So personal rant. Why are there multi vitamins for every day of every person’s life? Kids. Adults, by gender. Senior citizens. Pregnant women. Teens. All massive, big enough only a whale could swallow it.
But after a hopeless search on Amazon, Walmart, Ingles in store, only CVS sells one a day multi vitamins with the minimum FDA suggestion in a swallowable round tablet. 365 in a container. Only $10.
What the heck.
Just eat your fruits and vegetables. You’ll be fine.
True, by and large the entire vitamin section could cease to exist. That’s a set of shelves with probably 100 different bottles, all irrelevant, but capitalism!
You will if the fruits and vegetables you eat contain all the vitamins/minerals/other nutrients you need. And they may well contain such if they are grown on high balanced-multi-mineralized soil with a high level of bioactivity.
But if you are eating nutrient-free virtual vegetables grown on mineral-free / biology-free virtual soil, you may not get the vitamins you need from such fruits and vegetables.
In which case, vitamin supplements become a long-term health necessity.
This just in: Covid patient zero
https://public.substack.com/p/first-people-sickened-by-covid-19
https://www.racket.news/p/on-todays-explosive-coronavirus-story
Thanks for these links.
Related reading:
https://usrtk.org/covid-19-origins/origin-of-sars-cov-2-gain-of-function-readings/
There’s nothing dispositive in the story, just a couple of names provided by USG officials who of course have an ulterior motive (denigrate China to help prepare the people for USA/China being on war footing, and distract from the USA’s dreadful response to the disease, which of course China has now copied). It’s an unprovable/unfalsifiable issue at this stage, and remains an irrelevant distraction. This, for example, is rancid bullshit:
the protocols for responding to a pandemic disease of this sort – which were ignored by the USA (and China/Wuhan local gov at the *very* beginning, though they then showed us the correct way to respond that would have solved the problem and saved millions of
lives, to which a gaggle of smoothbrained bedwetters responded: “It’S aLl AbOuT cOnTrOl ooOoOoOoOoOo”), which then trickled down to the UK and ultimately the rest of the world – do not change whether the virus emerges from nature of from a lab. This is just completely made up nonsense. The idea that “oh if only we’d known/accepted it was a lab leak from the start we could have taken meaningful action as a country” is just straightforwardly, insanely stupid (and I’m no longer surprised to see Taibbi peddle something so stupid). A number of elite countries and jurisdictions showed exactly how to solve the problem in 2020 and 2021 without sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for the gavel to fall on the “lab leak or natural spill” question, because it was of course completely irrelevant.
Arijit Chakravarty lays it and much else out superbly in his WSWS interview with Benjamin Matteus, which curlydan links to above (a must-read):
Emphasis added, and you’ll note the bolded bit is completely irrelevant to the question of a lab leak. One doesn’t even have to be that cynical to see why USG officials would be spoonfeeding lab leak “blame China for this misery” shite to a certified moron like Shellenberger out of vested interest.
It really remains something of a non-story (plausible but no direct evidence, all circumstantial, and with info fed from sources that deserve to be treated with more suspicion than they are) despite the alt-stream journalists’ attempts to puff it up as such and, more to the point, a complete misdirection, and sadly it seems to be an effective one. The real story has no sexy hook, it’s a story of slow degeneration reflected in, eg, the heroic work that Lambert does here every day, shining light on people and stories of ordinary, ongoing and preventable suffering that people like Shellenberger and Taibbi are all too keen to ignore.
> Awful” in what sense? Like an awful truth? Pearl-clutching played at the professional level.
I’d like to interpret this as (as I think it is in archaic usage) “full of awe”, .i.e. “awe-inspiring”.
It’s nice to look forward to having names at the top of the ballot for whom one can cheerfully vote.
Tucker Carlson.
Ep.3: America’s principles are at stake.
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1668747661028081664
Tucker Carlson feels off to me. Always has, as if he is being dishonest about somethings, but he seems to be saying what others in the “news” media refuse to say.
Interesting times.
FOX is coming after him with cease and desist letters and threatening lawsuits.
And today’s episode is a big middle finger to FOX.
He said things today, like the other two, that probably wouldn’t fly on FOX. Anti-war is not an allowable position to begin with, but to paint Trump as the only guy who isn’t will be the hammer he gets beat with.
They will have him working for the Kremlin by next week, if not sooner. If he gets too far off the reservation who knows how nuts it will get.
What interesting times…
Eisenhower’s farewell address.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address
Strong stuff portending blood in the streets and other ruptions. Alas, my street fighting days are long since gone. I will spectate with interest.
B would love that. Thing of the ‘domestic terriers’ bill he and the Dems have just waiting for the right optics to push through Congress. The de-fanged ACLU refers to the bill as worse than the Patriot Act in its attack of the Bill of Rights.
I think that more accurate phrasing would be, my input, “What little remains of principles in modern America are at stake, and it’s hanging by a thin thread…”
For me since I’m a fairly youngish whipper snapper, the lies really start after 9/11 and in Iraq with the whole Saddam and WMD false flag circumstantial to non existing evidence. The Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge and his shades of threat elevation, Deficits Don’t Matter (if I’m a Republican in the White House), Hurricane Katrina and coming to understand how it’s all a veritable SH show from the top down. And then there is the Global ClusterMuck or Great Recession, and the wimpy enforcement of any rule of law as per the Eric Holder doctrine. Lanny Breuer, etc…included. Cut spending for hungry kids but not a dime less for our defense and MIC.
Carlson (and others just like him) has had a better lived experience since joining FoxNews, which has now fired him, so the economics of a modern America must surely have impacted him less than it has many others ( myself included ). Losing jobs and shifting realities of the annual paycheck have a way of doing this. Okay, personal rant off.
I think if Biden throws a cog, Pritzker would — after a decent interval — throw his gut hat in the ring.
Wouldn’t it be great to watch a Chris Christie – JB Pritzker race? There’s not a stage that could hold em. It would be like the Lincoln-Douglas debates in that the two candidates would weigh more than everyone who ever heard either one of Lincoln or Douglas speak.
What a perfect symbol of America. Two morbidly obese corn-fed Americas running(?) to be the new Howard Taft? “Don’t make me throw my weight around” could be the new “Make him an offer he can’t refuse”
Full post. This is good stuff.
https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-discussion
I should have added that this is their new feature that isolates the literature discussion from their weekly talk and gives the full transcript. The subject is Isaac Asimov’ Nightfall.
The problem I have always had with Asimov is that he is an exemplar of the early PMC class. Hari Seldon is a classic case of a Meritocrat saving the dull normals from themselves.
I blame it all on Hugo Gernsback. His first magazine was ‘Modern Electrics,’ founded back in 1908. Eventually he founded ‘Amazing Stories,’ founded in 1926, the first science fiction magazine. It continued in the gadget oriented world view. Later, the so called New Wave ushered in stories centered around characters and sociologically themed plots. The early “greats,” like Asimov came out of that early technologically themed wave.
Anyway, that’s my pulp themed story and I’m sticking to it.
I haven’t read any Asimov in a very long time but did read this story last night. Asimov seems to have seen himself as a kind of techno-philosopher–certainly he was never going to win any literary prizes with the pulpy writing–and Nightfall is a parable on the limits of the human imagination which is why Kirn is bringing it up re the increasingly bizarre 2024 election showdown.
Guess we’ll see what happens. But in retrospect the “three laws of robotics” prediction isn’t happening–2001 might be the rebuttal–and the human imagination may be able to encompass even Trump versus Biden without “nightfall.”
Since no one has remarked on the Trump indictment, I will.
I follow several firearms related sites run by or frequented by Military veterans, not all of whom are MAGA types by any means.
They are contrasting the treatment of General Betraeus to that of Trump, if you recall Betraeus disclosed not only current black ops, but the names of the personnel involved to the journalist he was banging, then he lied about it.
When that came out his punishment was….pleading guilty to one misdemeanor count of mishandling classified information,.
We have a LOT of veterans who were angered by the slap on the wrist The General recieved and they are not happy about the treatment Trump is getting.
Seriously not happy and these are serious people.
The behavior of this administration at home and abroad is reckless to the point of insanity and the potential consequences are terrifying.
Indeed, the treatment of Trump is such a complete, obvious double standard, it’s hard to see how this is in any way a net positive for this country.
I guess we’ll see, maybe a rabbit is pulled from a hat here.
I seem to recall something about sauce and ganders.
>>>Indeed, the treatment of Trump is such a complete, obvious double standard,
Yes, but the problem is that many people honestly can’t see the double standard.
I wish the Orange Menace would go far, far away, but he is still the most likely Republican nominee for president. I also wish that Hilary Clinton, President Biden, and his son, Hunter, would all be in prison or at least facing trials, but that ain’t happening either.
Instead, it is people like Julian Assange who will likely do hard time.
If you haven’t done so yet, check out the Tucker Carlson link above provided by flora.
Yes, thank you, Flora. I got sidetracked tonight and forgot there was a new one coming out today.
Because I’m a member of the Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed (U.H.I.D.) – the veil-wearing support group in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.
I would not dignify a question like that with an answer, but I am very good at giving dirty looks. If you aren’t, you can silently look at them toe to top of head and remain silent.
Or you could be really rude: “Why are you wearing glasses? Why haven’t you lost 20/40/80 lbs?”
Or “You seriously need to ask?” as if they are an idiot.
Or “Excuse me, why do you think you have a right to ask?”
People like this do not deserve a polite response unless they work for your employer too and you can’t make a ruckus.
I like this! I’ll add it to my “stock” reply:
“Compassion for people I don’t want to infect with CV. Also, it improves my appearance.”
KABOOM!
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/westfield-major-mall-operator-abandons-145500415.html
Westfield, a major mall operator, abandons San Francisco amid retail exodus from city
They telegraphed the move way back in 2021 when they announced that they were pulling out from the entire United States, not just San Francisco. For a more sane take on the situation, please read the following: https://wolfstreet.com/2023/06/13/westfield-walks-from-mall-in-san-francisco-after-having-walked-from-malls-in-florida-screws-cmbs-holders-said-in-2021-itll-dump-all-malls-but-suddenly-blames-san-francisco/
I have shopped there. To see that mall go down is a bit frightening.
From the comments:
Most of the money for the poor people around here seems to go to all those worthless NGOs. They need some serious audits.
And I guess that the commenter doesn’t realize (or even care) that depending on what you read, what definitions you use, and for what areas of the United States is talked about ¼ to ½ of a local homeless population is employed? The car denizens and couch surfers are probably that. The people who maintain some control and haven’t gone full hardcore addict tend to hid away/
It is quite often not mental illness, physical illness, or unemployment that makes most homeless; it the very high cost of any kind of housing. Just look at the homeless seniors most likely on social security. Why are they homeless? After all the average monthly payment is around $1,700 which is more than enough for that cheap Bay Area $2,000 apartment, right?
Every time I do any digging on the vacancy rates around here, I always find evidence that that there are loads of units sitting empty because it is being used as a store of wealth, it’s a pied-à-terre, or an Airbnb, or because the landlord refuses to lower their price. So, let us have those mass conversions from office to apartment. I know it would be more expensive and time consuming to do at all, let alone well, but it could be done, and I am sure that some people somewhere have the right plans to do so.
And why not convert all those former warehouses and light industry buildings that were converted to overpriced condos and office space back into what they were originally? It would not be much compared to the 1950s or even the mid 60s, but it would be a positive step. A return to the manufacturing that used to exist all over the San Francisco Bay Area before everything was tossed away for tech and finance.
Here is a very short little animated political art-film type of video, called The Industrial Revolution and Its Consequences.
https://www.reddit.com/r/schizoposters/comments/148blbw/the_industrial_revolution_and_its_consequences/
You might have but Yves didn’t (courtesy of “John S”).