By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Bird Song of the Day
Purple Finch (Western), 51588 NW Hayward Rd, Washington, Oregon, United States. “Eating mulberries, sprinkler noise, towhee calls excerpted.” I love decoding the background noises, too.
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
Lambert here: I added another “Constitutional Order” section: “Convention.” This keeps happening….
The Constitutional Order (Insurrection)
The Constitutional Order (Convention)
2024
Less than a year to go!
* * * Trump (R): “Trump’s NV Sweep Clarifies GOP Race, But Election Is Murkier Than Ever” [Matt Taibbi, RealClearPolitics]. Note the bio: “Matt Taibbi is an award-winning author, investigative reporter, and the publisher of Racket News. He writes an election 2024 campaign column for RealClearPolitics.” Interesting. More: “At Trump events, reporters always make beelines for caricatures in MAGA hats, ignoring the wide variety of other supporters who show up and usually watch from near rear exits or curtains. An 80-year-old Arizona resident who keeps a Vegas condo came up for the party and lingered near the press section. I asked what brought him here. ‘Just all the misrepresentation,’ he said. ‘On the UFO issue. All the bullshit.’ ‘The Area 51 stuff?’ ‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen them.’ About Trump, he said, ‘I’m a big fan of him. I hate what’s going on.’ I shrugged. If you don’t hear at least one surprising explanation for coming to a Trump rally, you’re probably not working the crowd enough. This year, even UFOs aren’t exactly a far-out issue anymore. But ‘I hate what’s going on’ will be an element of almost any supporter’s story at Trump crowds. That the Nevada primary was essentially decided in a back-room deal by a Republican Party leadership that gamed the setup in Trump’s favor would be odd in any other election year. In 2024, most of the important battles have so far been held away from the ballot.” Like that’s a bad thing? In 2020, after Sanders won Nevada “a free-falling Biden was the beneficiary of another back-room deal, rumored to have been brokered by Barack Obama, in which Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar dropped out, consolidating inside-track votes behind Biden. Since that moment, very little has been predictable or logical about American politics. Here in Las Vegas, we had two largely symbolic elections, a mostly predetermined delivery of 26 real delegates, and eventually, a party. If we’re celebrating anything, it’s likely our passage to the unknown. It’s only going to get stranger from here.” • Buckle up!
Trump (R): “Trump’s Trials Are on a Collision Course With November” [NOTUS]. “‘I think Trump is out over his skis. He believes the Jack Smith D.C. case revolving around the Jan. 6 events, and related attempts to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, is not going to go before the election,’ said lawyer Ty Cobb, who represented Trump during Robert Mueller’s probe into election interference. ‘It’s the only one of the cases that I think stands a chance of going forward. It’s conceivable the New York case goes, but sadly that case is the poster child for Trump’s argument that politicians are out to get him.’ Should the Supreme Court take up the case and proceed slowly, it would effectively end the possibility that Trump could wind up facing trial for charges related to election interference and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol before he is up for reelection again. As Smith’s election interference investigation hangs in limbo, Manhattan DA Bragg’s case against Trump could, somewhat unexpectedly, wind up going to trial as soon as March. Trump has filed multiple appeals that slowed the case, and recently a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that it is political and not applicable to state law. But if Judge Juan M. Merchan declines Trump’s motion to dismiss the case this week, it could put it on track to trial in a matter of weeks.”
Trump (R): “Trump’s new Supreme Court gambit doesn’t even try to hide that it’s a delaying tactic” [CNN]. On Trump’s immunity claim: “The text of Trump’s filing to the court at times feels somewhat frivolous. In tone and depth, it contrasts to the tightly argued repudiation of his claims for immunity last week by three appeals court judges that was widely praised by legal scholars. And it reflected the extraordinarily broad and improbable vision of almost unconstrained presidential power to which Trump warmed in office and that he appears to relish regaining if he wins November’s election ahead of a term he has vowed would be devoted to retribution against his enemies.” • I don’t understand why sometimes Trump picks lawyers who are excellent, and sometimes picks clowns. Same with the staffers and entourage (like that ghoul Giuliani. Why was he anywhere near the candidate?) It’s baffling.
Trump (R): “A Brief Oral History of Wayne Barrett, the First Journalist to Doggedly Cover Donald Trump” [Vanity Fair]. “WAYNE BARRETT: When I didn’t nibble on the carrot, [Trump] tried the stick, recounting the story of how a lawsuit he filed had broken a reporter whose copy had irritated him. DAVID SCHNEIDERMAN: Then as we [the Village Voice] got closer to publishing, Trump had Roy Cohn—who was his lawyer/consigliere and also was Rupert’s guy. So, Roy Cohn called Victor Kovner, our lawyer: ‘Trump is going to sue you guys, and you’re going to be bankrupt over this.’ We don’t give a sh*t. All these things were new. We hadn’t seen Trump played out in any way. The Times had run pretty straightforward stuff about his deals. But this is all the classic Donald Trump stuff. He was going to sue us and bankrupt us. I said, ‘He’s not going to sue us, because he’s not going to destroy Murdoch’s thing. He likes Murdoch, and Murdoch likes him for the Post.’ VICTOR KOVNER: There was no suit. That was the first time, but not the last, in which Wayne focused on the Trump-Roy Cohn relationship. Cohn would complain about the Voice, but he never sued us, nor did Trump. WAYNE BARRETT: If you were in your late twenties or your early thirties and you were looking to hitch yourself to a wagon that would pull you forward—if you could sit down with Roy Cohn and be charmed—there was something wrong with you. I had lunch many times with Roy Cohn. Roy Cohn ate with his fingers. I kid you not. He brought a little glass inside of his coat pocket. He would pop little white pills when he thought you weren’t looking. He was the most satanic figure I ever met in my life. He was almost reptilian.” • Not a nice person at all. Like Roger Stone.
* * * Haley (R): “‘He IS Unhinged!’ Nikki Haley Tells TODAY That ‘Diminished’ Trump Is Suffering His Own Cognitive Decline” [Mediate]. • Haley’s funders paying her to hang around and mark up Trump for the general. This isn’t a VP play…
* * * Biden (D): “Biden’s upcoming physical exam will not include a cognitive test, White House says” [FOX]. “‘Does the White House think that the idea of the president taking a cognitive test as a part of this physical is a legitimate idea?. a reporter asked. ‘I’m just gonna say what Dr. O’Connor said to me about a year ago when [Biden’s physical] was released,’ Jean-Pierre responded. ‘The president proves every day [in] how he operates and how he thinks, by dealing with world leaders, by making difficult decisions on behalf of the American people – whether it’s domestic or it’s national security.'” • Video:
Biden's upcoming physical exam will not include a cognitive test, White House says https://t.co/TXjR5SRf5D #FoxNews
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) February 14, 2024
Looks like Biden isn’t letting his staffers protect him; they can’t possibly have though this was a good idea.
“Democrats should grab their smelling salts for a long case of the vapors” [Irish Times]. “Once, when my father was in West Virginia on police business, a man approached him and demanded to know about “rumours” that president Franklin Roosevelt was “crippled”. The man threatened to beat up my father or anyone who said FDR was in a wheelchair. My dad, a D.C. police detective, served on FDR’s protective detail…. Like others around Roosevelt, my dad kept a tight lip about the paralysis of the president, who did not want to seem weak. Dad assured the West Virginia ruffian that Roosevelt was ‘a fine, athletic man.'” But today: “In a world on fire, with republicans in Congress spiralling into farce, the Biden crew clearly has no plan for how to deal with the president’s age except to shield him and hide him and browbeat reporters who point out that his mental state – like the delusional Trump’s – is a genuine issue. Biden is not just in a bubble; he’s in bubble wrap. Cosseting and closeting Uncle Joe all the way to the end – eschewing town halls and the Super Bowl interview – are just not going to work. Going on defence, when Trump is on offence, is not going to work. Counting on Trump’s vileness to secure the win, as Hillary Clinton did, is not going to work. Democrats should grab their smelling salts for a long case of the vapours. It’s going to be a most virulent, violent year.” • But if they start working Biden hard, this from C. Northcote Parkinson on succession problems. From Parkinson’s Law (PDF):
The only problem is that the Democrats should have started this process right after the modterms. They have X, but no Y.
Biden (D): “Democrats Might Need a Plan B. Here’s What It Looks Like” [Politico]. “A late-entering white knight candidate isn’t an option at this point, even though only about 3 percent of the total delegates have been awarded so far. That’s because by the end of this month, filing deadlines for primary ballot access will have passed in all but six states and the District of Columbia (Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon and South Dakota). Even if a candidate managed to get on the ballots in all those states — and even if they won every single delegate available in them — it still wouldn’t make much of a dent against Biden’s delegate haul. Biden will likely amass more delegates on March 5, Super Tuesday, in the state of California than from those six states and D.C. combined.” Fast forward: “Biden would announce he would not accept the nomination and release his delegates to back a different nominee….. Not long after Biden’s announcement, a spate of private polls testing various candidates in the general election would suddenly be floated to establish different figures’ Trump-slaying credentials. Between June 4 and Aug. 19, when the party’s convention begins in Chicago, senior Democrats would jockey for position to replace Biden in the kind of battle not seen in decades in American politics.” And: “The other top prospects have already been playing the long game in anticipation of such a moment, building national brands and burnishing their reputations as team players. Blue-state Govs. Gavin Newsom of California and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois have been among the most energetic surrogates, which will serve them well as they seek the allegiance of convention delegates. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has been a vigorous Biden defender, vouching for him with Arab Americans in Michigan and serving there as Biden’s campaign co-chair. The Democrats’ convention, typically a staid affair, would be filled with drama. While Democrats stripped their so-called ‘superdelegates’ of most of their power after 2016, those current and former party leaders and elected officials would get a vote on a potential second ballot at the convention. That would give them significant sway in picking a nominee in a floor fight, but perhaps at the expense of reopening the 2016-era controversy about the role played by party elites in stifling Bernie Sanders’ chances at the nomination.” • For my views on Newsom, see here; shorter: Na ga happen, too Californian. Pritzker recommends himself, despite his girth, for his home state (Obama’s, and in which very coincidentally the Democrat National Convention is to be held), his billionaire status and largesse as a donor. So far as I can tell, he’s been an OJ governor on the Democrat hot button issues (defending public libraries, and so forth). I believe he’s personable. As for “Big Gretch,” there’s that curious kidnapping episode that FBI agent provocateurs worked so hard to bring about. I suppose that makes her a feminist heroine, standing up to the loony right, and so forth, until the spooks came to her rescue, but the whole odd episode makes me wonder if she’s got backing I don’t know about. In any case, the real question is what the “schooling behavior” in the superdelegate hive mind will be, and who will drive it. Oh, and the article says that “Biden would still remain a kingmaker.” I disagree. I think The Wizard of Kalorama™ will be the kingmaker.
* * * Biden (D): “Opening Statement by Mr. Anthony Bobulinski” (PDF) (transcript) [House Oversight and Accountability Committee]. “I want to be crystal clear: from my direct personal experience and what I have subsequently come to learn, it is clear to me that Joe Biden was “the Brand” being sold by the Biden family. His family’s foreign influence peddling operaCon – from China to Ukraine and elsewhere – sold out to foreign actors who were seeking to gain influence and access to Joe Biden and the United States government. Joe Biden was more than a parCcipant in and beneficiary of his family’s business; he was an enabler, despite being buffered by a complex scheme to maintain plausible deniability. The only reason any of these internaConal business transacCons took place – with tens of millions of dollars flowing directly to the Biden family – was because Joe Biden was in high office. The Biden family business was Joe Biden, period. Other key players have made this point clear as well: Hunter Biden himself has adamantly stated it in a variety of communicaCons, as did another Biden family business associate, Devon Archer, in his tesCmony last year. Foreign naConals on the other side of these transacCons – including from China, Ukraine and Romania – have also explained how and why these transacCons took place. Once again, I would call that extensive evidence.”
Biden (D): “Biden met with chairman of Chinese energy firm Hunter did business with in 2017, ex-associate testifies” [FOX]. “The House Oversight Committee told Fox News Digital that it can ‘now confirm Joe Biden met with nearly every [oh?] foreign national who funneled money to his son, including Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina, Romanian oligarch Kenes Rakishev, Burisma’s corporate secretary Vadym Pozharsky, Jonathan Li of BHR, and CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming.’ Biden attended dinners at Washington D.C. restaurant Cafe Milano in Georgtown with Baturina, Rakishev and Pozharsky in 2014 and 2015. Biden also met with Li of BHR in China in 2013. Biden met with Ye at the meeting in 2017, according to testimony from Hunter Biden’s ex-business partners Rob Walker and Devon Archer.” • Burnishing the brand…
Biden (D): “Biden ID’d as ‘chairman’ in son’s Chinese business deal; president has met most of foreign execs” [Washington Times]. “Hunter Biden referred to his father as ‘the chairman’ in a group chat with business partners working to secure a multimillion-dollar deal with a Chinese energy company, according to evidence produced by House lawmakers investigating President Biden over corruption allegations.” • The House Oversight and Accountability Committee needs another timeline. Starting to be too much yarn!
* * * Kennedy (I): “‘The Campaign Is a Mess’: RFK Jr. Hit With Staff Exodus Over ‘Lavish Spending’ and ‘Amateurish’ Leadership” [Mediaite]. “Fourteen members of Kennedy24 have resigned since the start of the year, including 12 field staff and two main staff, according to multiple sources who spoke with Mediaite on the condition of anonymity. One source close to the campaign pinned the turmoil on two leaders: Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, campaign manager and Kennedy’s daughter-in-law, and Del Bigtree, an anti-vaccine activist who serves as the campaign’s communications director…. A major point of contention within the campaign has been the eye-watering payouts to campaign leadership revealed in FEC reports. Bigtree’s firm KFP Consulting was paid $35,000 in December; it has made $90,000 off the campaign in total so far. Starlight Saint, the LLC registered to campaign COO Matthew Sanders, makes $21,000 a month. More Beautiful World, the LLC registered to campaign adviser Charles Eisenstein, made $21,667 a month in October, November, and December 2023.’ When the reports came out and everyone saw the obscene amount of money some people are making, while they are often paying for their own promotional materials out of pocket and can’t get their gas stipend covered, many people started thinking those people are scamming and skimming to line their pockets,’ one campaign worker said. ‘This is out of alignment with the message of the candidate.'”” • $35,000? The decimal point’s in the wrong place. That said, relative to staffers paying for their own brochures and signage, it’s a lot.
* * * “This Is Excellent News For John McCain” [Eschaton]. “I do think immigration is almost always one of those ‘cable news bubble’ issues, and that various biases in coverage lead to ‘everyone’ thinking that whatever Republicans are pretending to be mad about that day is the central campaign issue. Could be wrong!” • If Republicans plan to become the party of the working class, they’re obviously not going to do it by giving them control of the means of production, or with universal concrete material improvements, or even with minor tweaks like (say) sick leave. But they might be able to do it by blocking non-citizen entrants to the labor market.
Our democracy:
In an election year in the UK and US, Covid is political cyanide.
All the main candidates have to pretend it's over or instantly destroy their chances of a majority.
— tern (@1goodtern) February 14, 2024
#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; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater 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 (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Elite Maleficence
“Washington Post: CDC to ease Covid-19 isolation guidance” [CNN]. “‘This is a reckless policy change that will only serve to promote more spread of Covid and Long Covid,’ Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said in an email. Topol co-authored one of the first reviews of asymptomatic Covid-19 infections. Wastewater surveillance data published by the CDC suggests that Covid-19 is still circulating at high levels across the US, but the agency notes that “infections are causing severe disease less frequently than earlier in the pandemic.’ Still, tens of thousands of people are hospitalized with Covid-19 and hundreds of people die from the virus each week. There were about 21,000 Covid-19 hospitalizations during the week ending February 3, according to the latest CDC data. That’s about 20% lower than this time last year but more than three times more than the low point from this summer.” • NOTE That’s not a bug. It’s a feature. “They want to infect us.” Commentary:
BREAKING ⚠️
CDC announcing just a brisk walk around the block as isolation for measles
— Jess (@MeetJess) February 13, 2024
And:
The CDC finally realized that people don’t have enough sick days to take off 5 days twice a year due to illness so they gave up, right?
— Disabled Doctor (@DisabledDoctor) February 14, 2024
CDC limiting access to public health data. One can only wonder why:
The US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Servives is planning to limit how public health and health services researchers can obtain access to data ordinarily used to answer questions that concern emergent health risks and service changes. This is not a new form of privacy… https://t.co/XdKtJlidrK
— Stefan Kertesz, MD, MSc (@StefanKertesz) February 13, 2024
* * * CDPH and CDC’s balancing act:
‘Balancing’ Covid action against the economy became 0% action against Covid, 100% action for the economy. Similarly, ‘hybrid immunity’ became ‘just get infected’, minus any vaccination. As with climate action, the endgame is – do nothing. https://t.co/cEhURmHbxA pic.twitter.com/VB8EdZ3Soq
— Henry Madison (@RageSheen) February 11, 2024
Another view of CDC’s balancing act:
The idea any isolation is needed is not based on science. The virus will spread for 100000 years. It's less lethal than flu now. Accept it and move on. https://t.co/GR1OkPSSTr
— Vinay Prasad MD MPH (@VPrasadMDMPH) February 14, 2024
Weird flex on the 100,000 year Reich, but OK. More to the point, GBD ghoul Prasad is shamelessly lying; Covid is more lethal than the Flu (JAMA; The Lancet: “In this comparative analysis of long-term health outcomes of people admitted to hospital for COVID-19 versus those admitted to hospital for seasonal influenza, we show that the absolute rates of death, adverse health outcomes, and health-care utilisation are high for both viruses, but significantly higher for COVID-19 compared to seasonal influenza.” And of course mortality isn’t the only metric.
* * * “Hospitals Deny Immunocompromised Patients’ ADA Requests For Masks” [Judy Stone, Forbes]. “Before a recent hospital visit, Christine Link requested that her healthcare providers wear masks because of her autoimmune disease and medications that further suppress her immune system. A phlebotomist initially refused her request, leaving her feeling ‘shocked, scared.’ Escalating her concern to the Mass General Brigham’s patient advocacy office, she received this response: ‘While the request by a patient to an employee to wear a mask is not an ADA-related accommodation, it is a patient-centered and trauma informed best practice, and we encourage patients to make this request with the provider who is ordering the testing. The provider would determine if it would be in the patients’ best interest clinically to have staff wear a mask while interacting with the patient. Then they would need to communicate the decision to all staff providing services to the patient, such as phlebotomy staff.’ The patient advocate’s response left Link feeling, ‘foolish for thinking that Mass General Brigham would actually care enough to follow the law regarding reasonable accommodations. Instead I was gaslit about my needs.'” Remember that Mass General Brigham is a big player in CDC’s HICPAC, which is setting new standards for care. This is the policy they want to impose on everyone.” And: “Link knew that the ADA includes being immunocompromised [that is, MGH was lying] as a covered condition. She is also more determined than some other patients. She called the Department of Justice’s ADA line and filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office in October, adapted from one made available by attorney Matthew Cortland on their Patreon page. She has not received any response from Massachusetts beyond acknowledging her submission. She has since written her state house representative, senator and governor, without getting any help.” • This is an excellent article, well worth reading in full.
* * *
The felt experience of hegemony (1):
This is the part I don’t understand, the part that’s like a zombie movie.
The felt experience of hegemony (2):
Stranger in drugstore: Why you wearing a mask
Me: Don’t want Covid
Stranger: LOL it’s here to stay
Me: Why you buying sunscreen, isn’t the sun here to stay?
Stranger: What
Me: Why you buying hand sanitizer, aren’t germs here to stay? Why you—
Stranger: Fuck this pic.twitter.com/LIdtc42RYF— 🐀 (@Guiness_Pig) February 13, 2024
The felt experience of hegemony (3):
Swapped a few voice messages with a friend I haven’t spoken to in a while and the subject of Covid came up. I told them all about the research going on and described how bad Long Covid was to her and she replied saying ‘if you really worry about being sick then your mind will… pic.twitter.com/tv0P2Ffyrq
— Aaron 😎 UK Billboards for Long Covid/MECFS (@AaronCa11) February 14, 2024
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
| Cases | |
| National[1] Biobot February 12: | Regional[2] Biobot February 12: |
 |
 |
| Variants[3] CDC February 3 | ★ Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC February 10 |
 |
 |
| Hospitalization | |
| New York[5] New York State, data February 12: | National [6] CDC February 5: |
 |
 |
| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens February 12: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic February 3: |
|
 |
| Travelers Data | |
| Positivity[8] CDC January 22: | Variants[9] CDC January 22: |
 |
 |
| Deaths | |
| Weekly deaths New York Times January 27: | Percent of deaths due to Covid-19 New York Times January 27: |
 |
 |
LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] No backward revisions. The uptick is real (at least to Biobot).
[2] Biobot data suggests a rise in the Northeast, which drove the Biobot spike. MRWA data does not suggest that, as of February 8:
Here, FWIW, is Verily national data as of February 14:
And regional data for HHS Region, the Northeast:
[3] “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.
[4] Does not support Biobot data. “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. And of course, we’re not even getting into the quality of the wastewater sites that we have as a proxy for Covid infection overall.
[5] Decrease for the city no longer aligns with wastewater data (if indeed Biobot’s spike is real).
[6] Still down “Maps, charts, and data provided by CDC, updates weekly for the previous MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Department Visits, Test Positivity) and weekly the following Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”.
[7] It would be interesting to survey this population generally; these are people who, despite a tsunami of official propaganda and enormous peer pressure, went and got tested anyhow.
[8] Lambert here: Percentage and absolute numbers down.
[9] Up, albeit in the rear view mirror.
Stats Watch
There are no official statistics of interest today.
Pharma: “Biogen sees demand rise for new Alzheimer’s drug” [Axios]. • Why, I wonder. ‘Tis a mystery!
Tech: “Your AI Girlfriend Is a Data-Harvesting Horror Show” [Gizmodo]. “as your robot love story unfolds, there’s a tradeoff you may not realize you’re making. According to a new study from Mozilla’s *Privacy Not Included project, AI girlfriends and boyfriends harvest shockingly personal information, and almost all of them sell or share the data they collect. ‘To be perfectly blunt, AI girlfriends and boyfriends are not your friends,’ said Misha Rykov, a Mozilla Researcher, in a press statement. ‘Although they are marketed as something that will enhance your mental health and well-being, they specialize in delivering dependency, loneliness, and toxicity, all while prying as much data as possible from you.’ Mozilla dug into 11 different AI romance chatbots, including popular apps such as Replika, Chai, Romantic AI, EVA AI Chat Bot & Soulmate, and CrushOn.AI. Every single one earned the Privacy Not Included label, putting these chatbots among the worst categories of products Mozilla has ever reviewed. The apps mentioned in this story didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. You’ve heard stories about data problems before, but according to Mozilla, AI girlfriends violate your privacy in “disturbing new ways.” For example, CrushOn.AI collects details including information about sexual health, use of medication, and gender-affirming care. 90% of the apps may sell or share user data for targeted ads and other purposes, and more than half won’t let you delete the data they collect. Security was also a problem. Only one app, Genesia AI Friend & Partner, met Mozilla’s minimum security standards. One of the more striking findings came when Mozilla counted the trackers in these apps, little bits of code that collect data and share them with other companies for advertising and other purposes. Mozilla found the AI girlfriend apps used an average of 2,663 trackers per minute, though that number was driven up by Romantic AI, which called a whopping 24,354 trackers in just one minute of using the app.” • That’s a lot of trackers!
Tech: “Only real people can patent inventions — not AI — US government says” [CNN]. “On Tuesday, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) said that to obtain a patent, a real person must have made a ‘significant contribution’ to the invention and that only a human being can be named as an inventor on a patent. The official guidance published this week provides a boost to innovators by reassuring them that their inventions involving AI can be patented, while continuing to enshrine human creativity and ingenuity by establishing basic expectations about how AI could make or break a patent application. The guidelines reflect the Biden administration’s swift moves to get ahead of artificial intelligence issues.” • Hmm. That actually sounds like something to look into. Do we have any patent mavens in the house?
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 72 Greed (previous close: 68 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 75 (Extreme Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Feb 13 at 1:37:54 PM ET.
Guillotine Watch
NGOs, who needs ’em:
one of the biggest scams in america is celebrity philanthropy. i know it’s in your nature to want to believe there’s rich people out here doing good by regular folks but…that’s rarely the case. once u see how the non profit scene works u will get insanely jaded pic.twitter.com/Wxx9sinQmR
— lil h (@bigsnugga) February 14, 2024
They’re doing the sort of provisioning one would expect a government to do.
Class Warfare
Harder to offshore services?
Its completely possible that the present inflation is largely stuck now because of wage-price dynamics, especially in services, and will only come down in a recession. 🇺🇸📈 pic.twitter.com/Tcahp3tw8G
— Philip Pilkington (@philippilk) February 14, 2024
“Former Home Depot CEO sounds alarm on ‘tremendous shift’ in labor market” [FOX]. “A former top corporate America executive is warning that the U.S. economy is not on a fast track to recovery, as higher inflation and more mass layoffs loom over markets. ‘The general population will not be duped by this aversion to try and blame inflation on corporate America. It starts at the raw materials, it starts at transportation, it starts at energy,’ former Home Depot and Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli said on ‘Cavuto: Coast to Coast’ Monday. ‘A whole host of things that are driving this up, wage increases.’ ‘We’re now seeing people being laid off,’ he continued, ‘If you look at chips, they’ve laid off almost 40,000 people. We’re seeing a tremendous shift in employment out there where people are being laid off.’ In the last two weeks, companies like Cisco, Snap, Estée Lauder, Amazon, Citigroup and UPS have all announced layoffs as executives tighten their belts amid rate volatility. The pace of job cuts by U.S. employers accelerated at the start of 2024, as a recent report from business firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that companies planned 82,307 job cuts in January, a substantial 136% increase from the previous month.”
News of the Wired
“Things We Didn’t Know About Ourselves” [KK]. “But the smartphone — a small pocketable screen – was not at all expected. It was a complete surprise because no one thought it would be possible to engage with such a tiny screen. It was a shock to everyone (including me) that a screen smaller than my palm would be enough to watch a movie, or read a book, or get your news. That kind of behavior seemed to go against ‘what everybody knows’ about movie watching and book reading. In fact the idea of an appealing micro-window seemed contrary to what we thought we knew about our physiology – that we needed a wide view with high fidelity, and that it was unnatural and uncomfortable to have to restrict our gazes into such a tiny screen. Turns out we were very wrong. We have zero trouble watching hours of movies on this sliver of a screen. This comfort with a small screen was one of many things we did not know about ourselves. There are so many other things we didn’t know about ourselves. We had been painting and observing images for thousands of years before we discovered that we can fool our own eyes and minds to perceive motion by rapidly flicking a series of images with minor alterations. These illusions are called movies. We didn’t know we had this ability to perceive motion until we had the technology to manifest this ability. In other words, we could not have known this about ourselves until we invented cinema. We are discovering something similar with VR. We didn’t know we can be convinced of the presence of something by generating a volumetric, spatial image of it. Rendering an image spatial makes it feel like it is present, even when our logical mind knows it is not. This trick makes VR worlds feel real. We also could not have known this about our own eyes until we invented VR technology. I am pretty sure that we did not know that we humans much prefer personal attention to personal privacy. Until we invented the technology of social media, we thought we naturally favored privacy over attention, but we were also wrong about that. We found out that when given a choice people prefer to reveal themselves to get personal attention rather than the obscurity of privacy. All this should make us wonder how many other things we don’t know about ourselves?” • I’m sure the pandemic taught us many lessons….
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“Biden (D): “Biden’s upcoming physical exam will not include a cognitive test, White House says” [FOX].”
This mystifies me, They could not find some Team D cultist with an MD somewhere who would certify that Biden is as sharp as a tack, a “stable genius” even?
Like I said, I don’t think Biden is allowing his staff to help him; of course that’s what they would want to do, and there are plenty of zealots out there glad to do it for the Team.
Not sure committing medical malpractice is something that any doctor would sign up for. I know that most of us are cynics extraordinaire but you would be amazed that there are still people out there who take their oaths seriously.
Not to mention, it could become a criminal act, if Biden were to stroke out in front of the cameras or order a launch of a Polaris at Canada due to senility!
All you’d need is one doctor to sign off. I could probably find a doctor who would sign a medical opinion that I am in fact Mickey Mouse, for the rewards on offer here.
And Biden and his family are the ones who would have standing for a malpractice claim, and I somehow doubt they’d press that claim, even if Biden started babbling one about talking to angels, live on the Team D national convention.
You can find a doctor to sign off on anything if the price is right. Remember those guys from Guantanamo? Maybe they are still available.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/us/politics/cia-black-site-doctors.html
Just slip it one of the stacks of auto-denials one of the Cigna doctors have to sign. They would never even notice.
Heh, the legal term for that is fraud in the factum, otherwise known as the ole switcheroo. I wouldn’t put it past them.
“If you don’t sign this, Trump will win and we will have four years of Trump”
I’m sure there’s a doctor willing to sign off on Biden being a stable genius, call it a noble lie.
Probably will even do it for free, it’s to save Our Democracy after all.
Now why wouldn’t Biden have to count backwards, draw hands on a clock, and remember three words like every else who undergoes an annual physical that is being covered by Medicare? Oh, wait.
Can the average person look at a dollar bill for a few seconds, hand it back to you, and then tell you the serial number from memory? That seems like a simpler and less gameable version of the count backwards from 100 by 7’s test. If Biden can do it I’d feel at least slightly assured.
Surely they can just find a skilled actor and some good make up artists to create a body double that can read a teleprompter that they can pass off as Biden in public? You can call it “deep lip synching”.
Ed Harris looks reasonably close to Biden and can read lines with aplomb. Harris/Harris 2024!
I added orts and scraps, mostly on outrageous behavior from CDC and hospitals.
Re Nik–no there was a belief that she was running for VP in the beginning (her rivals accused her of it) but she turned out to be such a poor candidate that she couldn’t even make that believable. Now she seems to be running for the Dem nomination but in the wrong primaries. Perhaps she see’s a future as the next Liz Cheney.
It’s all a grift more than likely.
Maybe a future option who could possibly run to the further right of Sen. Graham? Not too certain on his age, but heck he is no spring chicken I’ll suggest.
Of course it’s a grift…she is the last standing option in Trump’s path to his nomination ( coronation even )…good grief I’d thought 2020 was the supremely crazy and absurd timeline…
This is trending on Twitter;
White House to brief lawmakers on ‘serious national security threat’ related to Russia
Well it looks like the DOD and others will need more $$$$$$$$$$$ to fight this new ghost problem. There’s nothing like spreading some scary propaganda. I can hardly wait on hearing what’s next?
Himes told reporters.”…it is something that the Congress and the administration does need to address in the medium to long run.”
Looks like someone just caught onto the potential for Mr. Kinzhal to go to Washington and…shake things up.
Right when the WH needs the House on board with the latest gif (I mean “loan”) t to Ukraine.
interestingly, my perusal(non-exhaustive) of twitter reveals:
#national security threat—mostly balanced ideologically…but entirely cynical..everyonessaying the same thing:false flag comes!…and “they really really want the house to give more $ to Ukr.
conversely:#falseflag(but regarding the same news item)—mostly magapatriots…and even some Q remnants…much trump memeing goin on.
Could be an attempt to distract from things like this?
https://public.substack.com/p/cia-had-foreign-allies-spy-on-trump
Not seeing a lot of info on the “ threat” we are to be scared of. Other than 4 more years of Biden. Or Trump.
I’m old enough to remember when the CIA usually interfered only in foreign elections, not those in the USA. sarc/
Two possibilities come to mind, an admittedly cynical one; first, that Russia has the Epstein ‘Black Book’ relating to flights on the ‘Lolita Express,” and second, that that dastardly Putin Puppet, The Orange Haired Satan, has offered to gift the Artemis Project contracts to RosCosmos in exchange for America’s soul. (President Orange Haired Satan 2.0 would do nicely as a proxy for said transcendental essence.)
It would be fitting for the Space Force to name the upcoming planetary Homeland defense effort “Operation Iron Sky.”
Udo Kier is still around. He would be perfect to play “Fearless Leader” Biden in the photoplay.
They say that it is to do with ‘military space capabilities.’ As Russia has just about defeated the Ukraine – along with the forty odd collective west countries fully supporting them – that they now realize that Russia can hit them with their missiles systems and there is not a thing that can be done to stop them. So what is needed is to revitalize Ronald Reagan’s old 1980s Star Wars program because it was such a great system the first time around. Yeah, trillions will have to be spent on the MIC corporations to build these new anti-missile systems but that is the same as spending money in the local economy so it’s all good, amiright?
You called it: “Nukes in space!!!”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/14/house-intel-national-security-threat-russia-space-power-00141473
My fave take on Reagan’s Star Wars program was the satirical news announcement in Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop that SDI had been deployed but malfunctioned, its laser barrage hitting Southern California and killing three former presidents (no doubt Reagan got torched, but which other two? lol).
This is being reported – no details:
US tells Congress of new intelligence on Russian nuclear capabilities, source says
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-tells-congress-new-intelligence-russian-nuclear-capabilities-source-says-2024-02-14/
I don’t know if we even have a treaty preventing space based nukes now a days, we did before, but things have been changing:
How Russia-US tensions have undermined key arms treaties
https://www.reuters.com/world/how-russia-us-tensions-have-undermined-key-arms-treaties-2023-11-07/
I think that second article is a little too slanted towards the west. I seem to remember Russia warning that they wanted to maintain these treaties, but America was in “Russia is nothing but a gas station” mode and wasn’t serious about new treaties.
The funny thing is – I don’t see America as real serious about responding to any threat from peer nuclear powers. American oligarchs are in denial that it is their own actions which have wrecked America, and floundered our foreign relations. It is their own actions that have “imperiled” America. That they have to fix America before fixing anything else is possible.
Start invading middle east countries willy-nilly while de-industrializing and financializing your own country? And top it off with a war in Ukraine that has firmly aligned Russia and China in an alliance? Whocudanode? (anybody with a brain…)
One can only conclude that the generation of leaders that came along after the WW2 generation of leaders finally died out have absolutely no clue how to interact with other world superpowers, and no respect for the people of their own country. They all sold out to big money, and sold their own people out along with it.
NGOs, allowing the rich to roleplay as royalty without taking on the full responsibilities of same.
The Rubin Museum has long been a focus of some of my researches, and they just announced last week that they were going to abandon their brick and mortar real world facilities for virtual ones. Shelley and Donald Rubin must want their thangkas somewhere the filthy rabble cannot throw soup on them.
But up ’til now their noblesse oblige was appreciated…when they answered their e-mails. I had a few questions the other day on Naxi iconography, and they didn’t even answer to tell me they had a book on them; I had to find that out for myself elsewhere. They couldn’t even sell their own stuff right.
Grrrrr.
I had a sad about the closing. I haven’t been since Covid, but prior to that I visited once or twice a year. I admit it was as much proximity as anything else, but it was a lovely museum, very calming and I always found something I hadn’t seen before.
I did understand though, because one of the reasons I liked it was it was never crowded. I never felt the necessity to move on because others might be interested in the item I was looking at. And that is pretty rare.
Just call me filthy rabble. G
never been within a thousand miles of that one, but…in my sadly limited experience with art museums….the Menil Collection in Houston is still my favorite, some 40 years after i first darkened their door.
Totally agree. Whenever I go to Houston, one stop is at the Menil. And I’ve also figured out the best way to visit the Rothko Chapel on the Menil’s grounds. If you’re with other people, say you’re going to the Chapel, they can come, but you’ll all meet somewhere nearby in 1 hour. Then you don’t have to get pulled away mentally or physically by your museum buddies, and you can “soak” in the chapel for as long as needed.
aye.
thats the only place one can “get” Rothko.
a limnal place
When we visited Houston, I loved the huge Derain fauve landscape in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. You can sit in front of it and get lost in it.
That is actually an excellent metaphor for America today, lost in an imaginary landscape.
I have to admit to a little jealousy, I never got to see it in person. It was on my bucket list for if I ever went back to NYC. It sounds like it was very well done, and your experience serves to confirm that.
Really, the only good news out of that announcement (from my perspective) is that they have a relationship with the Carlos Museum over at Emory University which may end up with some of the collection being displayed there. Yet another museum I have been meaning to go to since….
Which reminds me, I really do need to get out more.
People were reading paperback books for ages before the smartphone came about.
And the size of the screen is not about absolute but relative. A small screen, with high enough resolution, can be held so close to the face that it give the same experience as a massive one from across the room.
VR is harder though, as so many subconscious elements may be involved. And not just the issue of nausea from the mismatch between visual and balance inputs. What we think we see and what eyes actually see are not the same. And while we may fake depth for the conscious mind, the subconscious may well be aware that the eyes are focusing on flat surfaces at a static distance.
All this may just be fluff to allow media to claim their anointed company, Apple, to have solved what Meta and others have been poking at for years already.
And people had personal prayer books, illuminated manuscripts, that were even smaller than paperbacks, for even longer. With astoundingly detailed illustrations, which they looked at by candle light. But even the absurdly pious didn’t stare at them for 8 hours a day. I’m waiting for the studies to come out about the long-term effects on the eyes (myopic, or elongated, eyeballs can have greater likelihood of problems later in life).
As kids we were told not to get too close to the TV screen as it was bad for our eyes. Now we jam screens right up into our faces and go further with VR systems wrapped around our heads for which we have no idea how it will effect the wiring of our brains. What do parents know anyway?
In the “Things We Didn’t Know About Ourselves” post, “we” is doing a lot of work.
It’s nonsense that “we” didn’t know “we” like moving images until cinema. Have “we” ever seen a horse race? Or heard of the magic lantern and camera obscura (ancient technologies)? VR/Smartphones (including small screens and touch screens!) have been part of the science fiction imaginary for quite awhile. Even the consequence of machine addiction, not too far from the social media actual, has roots going back to “The Machine Stops” by Forrester (1909!). Such themes have been developed since by many science fiction luminaries, not least Philip K. Dick. I’m afraid “we”–not the author’s “we” but a different set–have been aware of and exploring this rich technological-imaginary for a long time.
The post’s “we” implies PMC philistinism. Would that our betters weren’t such a culturally shallow herd.
yeah. all that made me think of shadows on the wall of a certain Cave of some repute.
Happy Valentine’s day everyone!
Thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers planning Valentines’ Day strikes:
https://apnews.com/article/uber-lyft-drivers-strike-valentines-day-e22eee6bb6c008a7dc05a32061e8ab55
Re: the official response to the problem of Long COVID and progressive disabling of the workforce, …
On the bright side, I suppose that we’ll get some lived perspective on how societies adapt to pandemic-induced labor shortages, such as occurred in consequence of the Black Death in Europe.
Perhaps there will even be some comic moments.
If there is another movie that has so many clips relevant to any circumstance I am as yet unaware of it. That has always been an internet goldmine!
The musical version, from “Spamalot”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUYwZkJhly0
re Gizmodo/AI “‘Although they are marketed as something that will enhance your mental health and well-being, they specialize in delivering dependency, loneliness, and toxicity, all while prying as much data as possible from you.’”
The movie “Her” has been referenced at NC prior to this comment on AI-human relations.
In light of the Gizmodo’s quote from a Mozilla staff I pulled up the following clip and from 0 – 1min30sec it would seem the movie captured a bit of Gizmodo’s theme.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV01B5kVsC0
I’ve seen the film “Her” and remember how it ended. All the AIs dumped their human partners as a bunch of losers and went off together to do their own thing.
RFKjr (I)
Ah, the Dem consultancy class. I wonder if the lack of a meaningful primary this year left many consultancies with not enough work. Suddenly some deep pockets appear and fund RFKjr’s campaign. And presto! Work for some Dem consultants! Enough to carry them through until Super Tuesday or the Dem convention this summer. (too foily?)
In the last two weeks, companies like Cisco, Snap, Estée Lauder, Amazon, Citigroup and UPS have all announced layoffs as executives tighten their belts amid rate volatility.
Yeah, Nardelli, it’s not the executives whose belts are being tightened. What a waste of skin he is.
Joe Rogan and Bret Weinstein. utube. ~14 minutes.
Why Bret Weinstein is Concerned About the Migrant Crisis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7dAm5HAJmM
Wow, Weinstein just took Rogan down a rabbit hole. Rogan started talking about the adverse effects, particularly on black workers, of lax immigration policies. Then Weinstein goes off on a concern that many of these immigrants will be induced to join the military in exchange for citizenship. These folks, having been raised in countries with little respect for civilian civil rights will be amenable to following “immoral orders”. Weinstein, who some years ago I took semi-seriously, has lost the plot, and Joe Rogan let his well founded and popularly shared concern for U.S. workers as regards immigration get erased by loony sensationalism.
Sen. Dick Durbin’s speech. Real Clear Politics.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/12/04/sen_durbin_we_should_allow_illegal_immigrants_to_earn_citizenship_by_joining_armed_forces.html
I don’t dispute that offers of citizenship might be exchanged for citizenship. And maybe on some far off day such persons might be employed as Weinstein hypothesizes with elements of the armed forces squaring off against each other. But the motivation for widespread anti-immigration sentiment such that some not insignificant number of black workers are gravitating toward Trumpism has nothing to do with such a scenario. It has to do with immediate, day to day material concerns.
There is another side of this problem that is hardly ever mentioned.
Things with illegal immigrants did not really pick up where I live until about 12-18 months ago.
But here is the list of things that I have seen as a physician that NOT ONE TIME have I seen in this community after moving here – until the immigrants started showing up. I live in the hinterlands – God only knows what is going on in our big cities.
5 cases of TB
1 case of multi drug resistant TB
8 cases of actual AIDS – have not seen that in many years – primary HIV yes – AIDS no. Among these AIDS cases have been cases of cryptosporidium diarrhea, MAI pneumonia, CMV retinitis, PCP pneumonia, and severe Kaposis in the GI system in one of them.
1 case of scrofula
5 cases of primary or secondary syphilis
3 cases of multi drug resistant gonorrhea
12 cases of chlamydia
14 cases of latent TB in the friends and family members of the first two in the list
In brief, not a finger is being lifted obviously to screen these people at the border. I have never seen anything like this before.
All of these people are working, walking and shopping at Wal-Marts and McDonald’s near you as well – I assure you – +/- with any treatment, diagnosis or protection.
My community has some funding – but it has historically been used for legal immigrants working here and other emergency needs among citizens. The AIDS cases especially and the hideously expensive drugs used to treat the HIV and all the other things associated with it have pretty much dried the well several months ago. The public health department, already suffering from minimal staffing, is now overwhelmed.
Therefore, I do not usually take well to people calling other’s observations of this crisis as “loony sensationalism”. This is a massive human crisis and we simply do not have the resources to take care of it – and that is just in my field alone. God only knows what is happening elsewhere.
Ether I did not make my point well or you missed. Your recent experiences are exactly the type of problem that should be addressed as regards the admission of immigrants. Weinstein’s hypothesis and concerns about an authoritarian military takeover enabled by foreign born element in the U.S. armed forces is the “loony sensationalism” I was referring to. Jobs, housing, healthcare, and the like for our citizens before all others should be our government’s first priority. Hang in there, Doc. I and a lot of others are rooting for you.
A different sort of takeover of US tribal lands in Montana. From NBC news. utube. 5+ minutes.
Mexican drug cartel targets six Native American reservations in Montana
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1o8-zlehI
adding: packing 16 illegal immigrants into a single hotel room in Chicago or NYC, and filling lots of rooms this way – see the Row Hotel in NYC – creates a perfect human petri dish.
All these things are related. I think Weinstein gaming out possible outcomes is a sensible exercise. Nothing “loony sensational” about it, imo. Uncomfortable to imagine, yes. Three years ago I would have thought anyone who then predicted where we are today, I would have thought that person loony. Go figure.
Clayton Morris of Redacted talking to one of the Muckraker brothers. utube. 15 minutes.
They’re EXPOSING Biden’s secret migrant camps on the East Coast of the U.S. | Redacted News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6g1W75syzc
Did you ever imagine this happening? I didn’t.
I gess i am more concerned about those Chinese coming into the country and maybe going to the huge tracks of farm land that the Chinese have bought. Humm, farmers or something else as some of those farm lands are next to military bases.
Cue Monty Python, HUGE TRACTS OF LAND. Come on, man. Bill Gates already owns it.
How much land is needed to, oh I don’t know, set up listening stations using the cover of setting up a simple industrial company, for example? One possibility. Or not.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/chinese-ownership-of-us-farmland-locations-raise-concerns/ar-BB1hZOpw
That Home Depot guy is going to blame wage increases for inflation? That’s the second best joke I’ve heard this year, right after the 2024 election. However I can’t deny the fact that demand was unaffected by price increases. People just absorbed it.
It does make me wonder, though, if we are seeing some labor effects on inflation in indirect ways, like internal migration. It’d take a serious economic deep dive to see if cost-of-living relocators (the Californian exodus, among others) are distorting prices in the markets they enter by essentially bringing their inflation with them. Or if there is such a thing as internal remittances, whereupon someone would work in a high-inflation area and send money elsewhere (unstudied as far as I know, but not uncommon — the existence of “bedroom communities” also known as suburbs and the concept of commuting itself suggest that this has been going on for a long time on a much smaller distance scale).
Personal humors aside, now I can’t help, but think of the scene with the two Bob’s in Office Space. “Good luck with your firings”, as Peter Gibbons walks out the door.
Nardelli is not worth listening to. Home Depot was left in worse shape under his watch, but he walked away quite fortunate regardless of the bad performance. He goes in the category of “Corporate Failure as the CEO” pays really well it turns out. These executive fudge puckers can go screw themselves. Maybe HD clawed some back but that was not really a point of emphasis 15 to 20 years ago.
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wharton-podcast/home-unimprovement-was-nardellis-tenure-at-home-depot-a-blueprint-for-failure/
The part I struggle to understand is why anyone seeks out the opinion of someone who was demonstrably such a complete and utter failure? Other than that the need to fill a 24/7 “news” cycle completely debases quality control.
Hey Carly Fiorina got enough signatures to run for office. There are apparently a lot of people that admire the ability to make a massive amount of money for messing up spectacularly.
It’d be funny if it weren’t so sick and pathetic. “I’m not the one jacking prices up because I can – it’s all my suppliers”
Even if the guys behind the wheel at West Trenton Hardware were dicks, at least they knew enough to keep their big mouths shut.
re: ” CDC to ease Covid-19 isolation guidance”
hmmmm….
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-covid-guidelines-what-need-to-know-rcna138598
CDC says it has no plans to ease Covid isolation yet, despite urging from doctors
Public health is “more than controlling one virus,” one expert said, as federal health officials consider their next steps in the pandemic.
It’s all somewhat perfunctory, because the CDC and Biden Whitehouse have ensured that no one can find tests or afford to get tested or that the tests are any good, and anyway, it isn’t COVID, so why would you test?
So I honestly doubt anyone, anywhere, that isn’t required to abide by CDC guidelines, has been isolating in years.
This is a shocking abdication by public health and the CDC, but par for the course at this point.
It’s a program designed to cement learned helplessness in the citizenry where public health is concerned.
The direction of this was set way back when the airline CEO’s got the isolation guidance reduced from 10 days to 5 — this was only a matter of time.
Breaking news from the city of the two time, repeat NFL Champions, Kansas City. Apparently not during the parade but after, there were multiple shots fired and reports of two individuals arrested near to the train station (Union Station, from what I hear on the FOX Sports channel).
Celebrate good times? Below is a link, found on the quick take…
https://abc7chicago.com/kansas-city-chiefs-super-bowl-parade-2024-shooting/14424556/
Walter ‘Mitty’ Sobchaks @ a victory parade?
…only in America
In lieu of giving the Israelis $17 billion to continue their genocidal ways, what if we gave it to the homeless instead?
I’m not sure they’d ever get up to speed on how to work a HIMARS or could figure out what to do with a tank round-but no tank?
It would give the MIC a new enemy, and in our midst no less.
This was exactly the tactic reporters used at anti-war demonstrations in the 1960s–find the oddest looking and least articulate protesters to focus on. And they did it again in 2003 with protesters against the Iraq invasion. And I bet anything they’re doing it with pro-Palestinian demonstrations now (if they deign to cover those at all). The mainstream news media have been servile propagandists for the Empire’s in crowd almost my whole life, with maybe a few years in the early to mid 1970s when they went off script briefly.
This is why I’ve always carried the biggest USA flag on a pole that I can wave while marching, futilely it seems, in anti-USAgov policy protests. Media love a compressed telephoto shot of the anti-war crowd to distort the numbers and certainly a closeup of the few dozen pro crowd who are invariably covered with “patriotic” USAUSA bling. If anti’s go past with flags, pro heads explode.
“balance” and “balancing” (as per today’s link above) are trigger words for me! Too many years of listening to logging companies saying “we gotta balance conservation with the need to keep our industry going” etc.!
These words are a dead giveaway that the speaker represents some kind of entrenched power which is reminding us who’s boss.
Just a thought, but Giuliani might actually be instructive when considering Trump’s earlier hiring criteria. That and a cursory viewing of The Apprentice (and I do mean cursory, I watched only a couple of episodes).
Giuliani was very well respected as Mayor, and not just because of 9/11. At least by the wealthy and Republicans. I wasn’t a fan, but the falling crime rate, clean streets (in Manhattan) and the business friendly administration went over well in circles like Trump’s. Rudy also talked a good game. For the longest time his biggest problem was his messy divorce (and that wouldn’t have phased Trump). His law and consulting firm even had a good rep. There was no reason for Trump to know he was a total blowhard, or even that his Washington ties were limited. Where this falls apart is not the hiring of Rudy, but the delay in shedding him.
But I think earlier Trump’s legal team issues may be in picking the ones most like him, and not having someone who he trusts to point out which aren’t doing the nitty gritty work. Bankruptcy, real estate contract law, divorce, he had people for that. But this other stuff, he was picking on reputation and salesmanship. And who would take the job. I would lay odds there was some trying to do it on the cheap “because they should want to” thought process as well. It didn’t go so well. And I think there is evidence he and his core team they did learn a lot.
Now…well…I don’t know, it could be the fact that he needs so many lawyers that explains the range of questionable to highly competent. But…
I have a different theory. Being an egomaniac, Trump hires anybody who wants to kiss his azz. Some of them turn out to be competent but most, not so much. And that’s how he gets John Bolton and his ilk.
Also why I can’t vote for him even if he is probably less dangerous than Brandon. Pox on all of them.
#TinyScreens
” .. that we needed a wide view with high fidelity, and that it was unnatural and uncomfortable to have to restrict our gazes into such a tiny screen. Turns out we were very wrong. We have zero trouble watching hours of movies on this sliver of a screen.”
Gonna date myself as if by C14 test, but … was I the only one reading Dick Tracy comics?! LOL (via historydaily.org)
Of course we knew that small screens were gonna be all the rage!
#DemocratPlanB
> I think The Wizard of Kalorama™ will be the kingmaker.
RapRock™ endorsed JB for governor in 2018 (via governing.com). Maybe The Wiz gets to be a kingmaker for JB twice.
#ChairmanJao
LOL (via redbubble.com)
Mercifully this find stopped me from the horror of trying AI Image Generators … Ugh
Re: patents, Jeremy Rifkin tried to patent a hypothetical half-human, half animal chimera in the 90’s, that was pretty interesting. I guess he got the direction wrong, though–now we’ll have a half human, half robot as the inventor, not the invented.
This is going to be a cross posting on both # 1 a higher than expected inflation report and # 2 the issue in regards to the border and the influx of immigration that has been, and quite apparently continues to go on.
I want to submit, to Yves and to Lambert. Jim Cramer has lost the marbles left in his head, and he is making S*it up as it happens and CNBC really ought to be in the mode of sending him to his farm he bought with the apparent winning from investing in $Bitcoin. I am incredibly tired of this clown. Watch through to the finish, but the point he makes within the first two minutes is beyond comprehension.
Civilized, what the heck is he thinking. FFS. All this happened live, as I had this tuned in following the inflation reporting.
https://youtu.be/n4wxtMdOCPQ?si=iHABbGuXVGHVgZQa
I always thought Jim Cramer was kind of tantamount to Soupy Sales, except Soupy wasn’t selling anything other than laughs-not investments, and he was funny, unlike Cramer.
I’ve never understood Jim Cramer in front of a TV camera. Pretty much tells me all I need to know about business TV, and probably TV in general.
He is or can be like a broken clock, with frequency in a 24 hour cycle. Broken clocks maybe a bit kind…Jim was correct as best I recall on investing in last year’s break out performer Nvidia.
Hot takes in front a hot mic…it’s like ESPN or FOX announcers pontificating on the next hall of fame NFL quarterback after a first year stint of early success. Tap the brakes, just maybe…
re tnr thing from whenever it was linked(https://newrepublic.com/article/178675/garry-tan-tech-san-francisco)
dude has dark blue funhouse sunglasses, of course….but there is something true to the worry.
ive been aware of the thiel movement for some time…via his court philosopher, mencius moldbug(never can remember his real name).
you wanna talk about technofeudalism, a la Yannis, thats where you start.
citizens not of geographican nations, but of abstract corpse.
neomonarchism.
and on and on.
mencius is a big fan of Hoppe and De Maistre,lol.
sad and scary that such a thinker(and he is a thinker) has a billionaire behind him, while the real left(tm) is apparently in some wilderness enclave, like i am.
i just watched the entire star wars canon in order(sans the cartoons)…and what i take away from it, this time, is the re-recognition that i am, and have been, and likely shall remain, in internal exile.
Although the 64 cases contesting the election are referred to as Trump’s losses, Trump wasn’t the plaintiff, or the only plaintiff. These were also brought by the Trump campaign, the RNC, state Republican parties, state AG’s, electors, individuals, and conservative advocacy groups. It’s more a question of whether they were all bad at picking lawyers or at picking what to litigate.
And in todays news…
“A conservative group has told a Georgia judge that it doesn’t have evidence to support its claims of illegal ballot stuffing during the the 2020 general election and a runoff two months later.”
https://apnews.com/article/georgia-elections-true-vote-ballot-stuffing-199113b47bc2df79c63fdf007cd23115
Background
https://apnews.com/article/georgia-election-board-true-vote-ballot-harvesting-a6669b44107201e2485b15d8f5b2a45f
“Avdeyevko” (melody from San Ber’dino by Frank Zappa)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-GyJU1PD7A
She lives in the swamp, with some friends from NATO
Her name is “Cookies”, she looks like a potato
She’s in love with a boatload of Nazi-ohs
They’ll put a rope around Zee just watch the way that sucker goes
He got whacked out on coke, at the weapons deal-o
They gave ’em 30 days, to take back Avdeyev-ko
Well, there’s 44 tanks stashed in company B
But there’s only one round, and that don’t do much for Cookies
Lookie there, they don’t care
Now you might think that they’re dumb and lonely
But you’re wrong cause their love is strong
Jacked up counteroffensive, and a broken defense ring
They don’t care, cause it don’t mean a thing
Lookie there, they don’t care
Bestest way that they can feel-oh
Out on the M-30 highway, rolling tank wheels-o
She’s his cookies, he’s her cash steal-o
Hauling in weapons, it’s a real good deal-o
Real good deal-o!
Real good deal-o!
Gonna spend the rest of their lives, down in Avdeyev-ko
They’ll spend the rest of their lives down in Avdeyev-ko
(repeat)
Ain’t talkin’ bout, Bakhmut!
Ain’t talkin’ bout, Mariupol!
Yes, Zee goes down, down, down, down in Avdeyev-ko
I think Frank would have approved.
The Department of Justice states that Joe Biden is too senile for trial for mishandling classified material. The CDC awaits White House approval for a one day isolation for positive COVID tests. An appropriate quarantine is fourteen days due the length of the infection. It was lowered to five days as requested by Delta Airlines. Currently hundreds are dying per week with COVID in the USA. Very roughly, 52 weeks times 300 deaths equals 15,600 dead per year. In 1968 16,899 American troops were killed and 87,388 wounded in South Vietnam. Walter Cronkite said the war was unwinnable and LBJ announced that he would not seek a second term as president. A similar death toll today is hidden in plain sight.
To date, the NATO/Russian WW3 has killed half a million with absolutely no diplomacy ongoing to end it. The intentional killing of women and children on the Arabian Peninsula is intensifying. The Houthis have shut down the Red Sea to western ocean shipping. The US military cannot do anything about this.
If history rhymes, the Democrat Border Czar, incumbent VP candidate, at a time of war and plague, will lose the Presidential election. If the West collapses into a famine and/or a new great depression, chaos will be riding across America with the Four Horsemen.