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2:00PM Water Cooler 7/3/2024

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Readers, this post is a pantry clearout mostly for the Covid material I had to blow past during The Late Debate Unpleasantness. There’s a good deal of it, since I just kept postibg until I decided to stop, but maybe you can peruse it all slowly over the holiday. Stay safe out there!

Bird Song of the Day

Common Loon, Hayden Lake Property, Burnett, Wisconsin, United States. “One parent foraging and feeding 2 chicks, one parent tending chicks, and both chicks giving soft wheezy contact/begging(?) calls. PIWO drumming in background etc. Recorded from kayak.” PIWO = “Pileated woodpecker.”

* * *

In Case You Might Miss…

(1) Jill Biden, Vogue cover girl

(2) Stevie Nicks and Taylor Swift.

(3) Great Barrington grifters..

* * *

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

* * *

2024

Less than a half a year to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

RCP takes North Carolina off the table as a Swing State, and replaces it with Virginia. Trump is still holding his own, and this is before the debate. Swing States (more here) still Brownian-motioning around. Of course, it goes without saying that these are all state polls, therefore bad, and most of the results are within the margin of error. If will be interesting to see whether the verdict in Judge Merchan’s court affects the polling, and if so, how.

* * *

Trump (R): “Trump seeks to set aside his New York hush money guilty verdict after Supreme Court immunity ruling” [Associated Press]. “The lawyers argue that the Supreme Court’s decision confirmed a position the defense raised earlier in the case that prosecutors should have been precluded from introducing some evidence they said constituted official presidential acts, according to the letter. In prior court filings, Trump contended he is immune from prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office. His lawyers did not raise that as a defense in the hush money case, but they argued that some evidence — including Trump’s social media posts about former lawyer Michael Cohen — comes from his time as president and should have been excluded from the trial because of immunity protections.”

Trumo (R): “Donald Trump is going to win the election and democracy will be just fine” [Jared Golden, Bangor Daily News]. “There are winners and losers in every election. Democrats’ post-debate hand-wringing is based on the idea that a Trump victory is not just a political loss, but a unique threat to our democracy. I reject the premise. Unlike Biden and many others, I refuse to participate in a campaign to scare voters with the idea that Trump will end our democratic system. This Independence Day marks our nation’s 248th birthday. In that time, American democracy has withstood civil war, world wars, acts of terrorism and technological and societal changes that would make the Founders’ head spin. Pearl-clutching about a Trump victory ignores the strength of our democracy. Jan. 6, 2021, was a dark day. But Americans stood strong. Hundreds of police officers protected the democratic process against thousands who tried to use violence to upend it. Judges and state election officials upheld our election laws. Members of Congress, including leaders from both parties, certified the election results. They all are joined in the defense of democracy by the millions of us who, like me, made an oath of allegiance to the United States and to the Constitution when we began our military service, plus hundreds of millions of freedom-loving Americans who won’t let anyone take away our constitutional rights as citizens of the greatest democracy in history. This election is about the economy, not democracy. And when it comes to our economy, our Congress matters far more than who occupies the White House.” • A Manchin Democrat….

* * *

Biden (D): “First Lady Jill Biden on What’s at Stake in 2024” [Vogue]. Worth reading in full. The first paragraph is wild, but here’s the last one: “There’s a version of political power that operates the way a motorcade does—slicing through empty roads, flouting rules, making regular folks wait behind barricades. And there’s a version of political power as Jill Biden embodies it, and as she expressed it at the Women for Biden event in Bloomington. This is power from the ground up, built on listening and coalition building. ‘They underestimate our power because they don’t understand it,’ the first lady told the crowd. ‘They see our empathy and compassion as a vulnerability. But we know they’re what give us the clarity to fight for what’s right.’ And in so doing, chip away at the hard problems. That’s the gig. Negotiate, reconsider your assumptions, and sometimes, agree to disagree, agree to lose. Only a tyrant would say otherwise.” • The argument is that Jill Biden embodies this version of of “political power” because she still teaches at a community college. Community colleges are wonderful, important institutions. However, if Jill Biden’s empathy were real, she’d be using her clout as an educator to support ventilation in all educational institutions. at the very least. In fact, both Bidens have been conspicuous in their lack of support for life-saving non-pharmaceutical interventions. So, hagiography. Here’s the cover:

I’m no fashion maven, but it looks like a straitjacket to me. Fitting, I suppose.

Biden (D): “Could Democrats replace Biden as their nominee? Here’s how it could happen, and why it’s unlikely” [Associated Press]. “In 2024, Biden swept all but one primary or caucus and the vast majority of delegates at stake in those contests. Those delegates are considered to be ‘pledged’ to Biden…. DNC rules encourage but don’t specifically require delegates to vote for the candidate they’re pledged to support. Instead, the rules say, ‘All delegates to the National Convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.’ In other words, the thousands of delegates Biden won during the primary season are bound only by their consciences to actually cast their votes for Biden when it comes time to select a nominee, although it would be unprecedented for delegates on a wide scale to support a candidate other than the one they were pledged to support. One feature of the party’s rules that makes a delegate revolt against the presumptive nominee unlikely is that the candidate has the right to review and make changes to their slate of delegates in each state, ensuring that delegate slots are filled by supporters loyal to the candidate.” • In other words, any “conscience vote” is purely performative. (I once read the Democratic National Convention bylaws, and its crammed with rules structured like this: Rule B undoes Rule A. It was the most accountability-avoiding document I’ve ever read.

* * *

“Whitmer Disavows ‘Draft Gretch’ Movement — and Delivers A Warning to Biden” [Politico]. “When Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer telephoned a senior official with President Biden’s campaign on Friday night, she wanted to convey a clear message: She hated the way her name was being floated as a replacement for Biden and she wasn’t behind the chatter. Whitmer’s conversation with the official, campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, was cordial but awkward by its very nature. In the aftermath of the president’s disastrous debate performance last Thursday, no would-be replacement has been the recipient of more wish-casting among despairing Democrats than the second-term Michigan governor. Whitmer, recognizing as much, disavowed the Draft Gretch chatter. She used the call to reiterate her commitment and willingness to help the president but also voiced her concern about how much more difficult the campaign would be now for Biden, I’m told by a person familiar with the call. Even more revealing is how word of the call reached me: from someone close to a potential 2028 Whitmer rival for the Democratic presidential nomination. This person said Whitmer had phoned O’Malley Dillon with more of an unambiguous SOS: to relay that Michigan, in the wake of the debate, was no longer winnable for Biden. That such political bladework is already taking place illustrates how badly her rivals want to wound Whitmer, by portraying her as being disloyal to Biden in his hour of need. Yet it also captures what an extraordinary, and extraordinarily precarious, moment this is for the well-stocked bench of Democratic governors who are eager to succeed Biden.” • Crabs in a bucket.

She should have checked with Wiillie first:

Party on, Garth:

I don’t think this binary is as clear cut as Karp thinks, because Flexians slither from category to category, but Karp is onto something. Stoller proposes a more compex structure:

Same objection re: Flexians above. In addition, they both leave out the spooks. But the spooks are players. From the FT:

One person familiar with the situation said some of the intelligence officials who give Biden his daily intelligence briefing had noticed his decline as early as last year, undermining claims from White House and campaign political figures about the president’s mental acuity.

A whisper not a scream, but the message is clear enough.

Spook Country

“Palm Beach prosecutor painted Epstein victims as prostitutes, grand jury records show” [Miami Herald]. Yikes:

Grand jury records are normally kept under seal to protect witnesses as well as the integrity of the case. But in the years since the Epstein case was closed in 2008, the Miami Herald uncovered evidence suggesting that Epstein and his battery of high-priced attorneys may have exerted undue influence over the state attorney. The records have remained under seal for 16 years. Earlier this year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, prodded by state lawmakers and Palm Beach County Clerk of Courts Joe Abruzzo, signed a bill to release the files by July 1. The new bill provides for the records to be unsealed if the subject of a grand jury inquiry is dead or the investigation involves sexual activity with a minor. DeSantis noted that making the records public might explain how the wealthy Epstein managed to “engineer an outcome that the average citizen would likely never have been able” to accomplish. The records contain nearly 200 pages, including the testimony of two girls who were molested by Epstein, the New York financier who abused hundreds of underage girls at his Palm Beach mansion between 1996 and 2008. Epstein managed to escape serious charges, in part because the Palm Beach prosecutor at the time, Barry Krischer, elected to charge him with minor prostitution and solicitation rather than bringing a felony sexual assault case.

Krischer is now a state attorney for Florida’s 15th Judicial Circuit (West Pam Beach).

Democrats en Déshabillé

The Democrats’ new base:

And I’m not joking. I cannot find the Tweet I wanted to pair with this; it was an image of a thirty-something couple replete with what are for me triggers or markers of conservative intent — cowboy hats and boots, the wrong sort of tattoo, mullets, general air of faintly menacing non-compliance — who were in fact upper crust working class and not conservative at all, let alone MAGA. Howard Dean said in 2004: “It’s time that Democrats address guys with gun racks in the back of their trucks.” He was, naturally, excoriated for this (and was shortly thereafter defenestrated for trying to make the Party viable in all 50 states). Twenty years later, I’m guessing those voters are still out there for the taking, although probably independents or disengaged. However, “a creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation” (Frank Herbert). So here we are.

In case you were wondering why Democrats were and are perfectly happy with Biden’s Covid strategy of mass infection without mitigation:

Everything’s going according to plan.

Syndemics

“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

* * *

Covid 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!

* * *

Look for the Helpers

Mask blocs sound like good things:

Sounds like Occupy Sandy (oddly unmentioned on WikiPedia’s Hurricane Sandy page).

Here is a map of Covid Action groups, includng Mask Blocs:

Airborne Transmission

Should somebody check in on Canada?

Why? Vibes?

Transmission: Covid

As I’ve been saying:

Maskstravaganza

“Relative efficacy of masks and respirators as source control for viral aerosol shedding from people infected with SARS-CoV-2: a controlled human exhaled breath aerosol experimental study” [The Lancet]. “All masks and respirators significantly reduced exhaled viral load, without fit tests or training. A duckbill N95 reduced exhaled viral load by 98% (95% CI: 97%–99%), and significantly outperformed a KN95 (p < 0.001) as well as cloth and surgical masks. Cloth masks outperformed a surgical mask (p = 0.027) and the tested KN95 (p = 0.014). These results suggest that N95 respirators could be the standard of care in nursing homes and healthcare settings when respiratory viral infections are prevalent in the community and healthcare-associated transmission risk is elevated." • No, at all times, because reporting time lags mean that "prevalence" is slow to be determined (i.e., there will needless deaths). Why Infection Control won't see NPIs as a switch to be thrown once and left on (like, say, plumbing) and not a dial to be constantly jiggered is beyond me (unless it's a jobs guarantee for the dial-jiggerers, of course).

* * *

Even in these degraded times, there are millions of mask wearers constantly seeking improved product:

It’s an enormous market failure that their needs are not met. Why is that?

Vaccines

“Gilead’s twice-yearly shot to prevent HIV succeeds in late-stage trial” [CNBC]. N=2000. “Gilead’s experimental twice-yearly medicine to prevent HIV was 100% effective in a late-stage trial, the company said Thursday. None of the roughly 2,000 women in the trial who received the lenacapavir shot had contracted HIV by an interim analysis, prompting the independent data monitoring committee to recommend Gilead unblind the Phase 3 trial and offer the treatment to everyone in the study. Other participants had received standard daily pills. The results bring Gilead one step closer to introducing a new form of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, and broadening its HIV business. Shares of the company rose about 7% on Thursday.” • Not quite sure where to file this, since PrEP might not be a vaccine proper (even twice-yearly seems as effecfive as some Covid vaccines). Still, good news.

Sequelae: Covid

Loss of executive function:

FInally, more evidence than anecdotes about road rage and running red lights. And a follow-up:

Treatment: Covid

Karma in near-real time:

Celebrity Watch

Modeling good behavior is not impossible for celebrities:

* * *

“Stevie Nicks begs fans to wear masks as catching COVID-19 would destroy her voice” [Yahoo Entertainment]. “Stevie Nicks has begged fans to wear face masks, claiming if she catches COVID-19 she ‘will probably never sing again.’ The 72-year-old Fleetwood Mac singer urged fans to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously, and adopt precautions to limit the spread of the virus. Nicks wrote on her Facebook page: “A lot of people still aren’t taking the wearing of a simple mask seriously – or, just trying to be aware of how close you are to others… It is not political. It is a silent killer hiding in the shadows. It is stalking you. It doesn’t care who you are…It’s just looking for a victim.'” Nicks and her masked entourage at a Taylor d concert:

And so, in a nice gesture, Swift plays “Clara Bow” and dedicates it to Nicks:

Unmasked, naturally. We’ll just hope Swift wasn’t superspreading that day. Yes, she’s still at it:

* * *

SARS never sleeps:

Too sick to pray:

Sounds of silence:

* * *

Tour de France:

Personal RIsk Assessment

“FREE box of Black N95s! (WE FOUND SOME FINALLY!)” [CO2 Radical]. “I don’t want to tempt fate, but I haven’t had a single day’s illness since 2019, and I’m loving it. It has required attention and diligence, but it is at least possible for those of us without school age kids, and I can’t see that my life has been made worse overall by the total absence of illness, at the expense of missing a few indoor dining experiences. It is bitterly ironic to me that, just at the time in our history when we are coming to understand the huge role of chronic inflammation and viruses in causing all kinds of diseases, including cancers (e.g. cervical) and neurological disease (e.g. MS), we have deliberately chosen to let a novel coronavirus with known multi-system effects and persistence infect and reinfect the entire population, including, for Heaven’s sake, all our kids. ‘Reckless’ does not begin to describe it.” • “Death cult” might do.

* * *

“Choosing to mask”:

Elite Maleficence

How’s that workin’ out for ya:

But GBD goons are still making bank…

The eugenics train always leaves on time:

* * *

“Experts Confirm COVID-19 Is Surging — Here’s What That Means for Your Disney World Trip” [All Ears]. “So what does this mean for your Disney World trip? Well, we recommend potentially putting a bit more focus on keeping your hands clean, especially before eating. Hand sanitizer is great, but if you can take an extra second to wash your hands with soap and water, that’s even better…. Additionally, we know it is quite unfortunate to be sick on your Disney World trip, but please don’t go into the parks when you’re not feeling well and think it could be because you’re sick with something contagious.” • Focus on fomites. Nothing on airborne transmission. Nothing on asymptomatic transmission. Four years in [pounds head on desk].

* * *

“Mission accomplished” (1):

“Mission accomplished” (2):

MIssion accomplished (3), the return of the repressed:

MIssion accomplished (4), Darwin Awards for everyone:

* * *

One of the earliest case studies of aerosol transmission took place in a church choir:

How is it that churches never picked up on this? Why didn’t pastors protect their congregations?

Social Norming

“Mild”:

My Twitter feed is hardly representative. Nevertheless:

Readers, has this happened to you?

* * *

Readers, I could not update these charts before I hit the road. –lambert

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater
★CDC June 24: Last Week[2] CDC June 17 (until next week):

Variants [3] CDC June 22 ★ Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC June 22
Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data July 1: ★ National [6] CDC June 8:

Positivity
★ National[7] Walgreens July 1: Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic June 22:

Travelers Data
★ Positivity[9] CDC June 10: ★ Variants[10] CDC June 10:

Deaths
★ Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC June 22: ★ Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC June 22:

” alt=”” width=”310″ class=”alignleft size-full wp-image-273838″ />

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] (CDC) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Worse than two weeks ago. New York is a hot again, and Covid is spreading up the Maine Coast just in time for the Fourth of July weekend, in another triumph for Administration policy. On that Bay area hotspot:

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) LB.1 coming up on the outside.

[4] (ER) This is the best I can do for now. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Now acceleration, which is compatible with a wastewater decrease, but still not a good feeling .(The New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and then around the country through air travel.)

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). This is the best I can do for now. Note the assumption that Covid is seasonal is built into the presentation, which in fact shows that Covid is not seasonal. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.

[7] (Walgreens) Still going up! (Because there is data in “current view” tab, I think white states here have experienced “no change,” as opposed to have no data.)

[8] (Cleveland) Still going up!

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Up. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn’t even run back to 1/21/23, as it used to, but now starts 1/1/24. There’s also no way to adjust the time rasnge. CDC really doesn’t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that’s why the shape of the curve has changed.

[10] (Travelers: Variants) Same deal. Those sh*theads. I’m leaving this here for another week because I loathe them so much:

[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.

[12] Deaths low, ED up.

Stats Watch

There are no official statistics today as of this writing.

* * *

Mr. Market: “Wall Street Seems Calm. A Closer Look Shows Something Else” [New York Times]. “A slowdown in inflation has boosted investor confidence in the economy this year and, combined with an intense [and totally organic] fervor for artificial intelligence, provided the backdrop to a rally that has beaten all expectations…. More than 200 companies, or roughly 40 percent of the stocks in the index, are at least 10 percent below their highest level of this year. Almost 300 companies, or roughly 60 percent of the index, are more than 10 percent above their low for the year. And each group includes 65 companies that have actually swung both ways. Traders say this lack of correlated movement — known as dispersion — among individual stocks is at historic extremes, undermining the idea that markets have been blanketed by tranquillity. One measure of this, an index from the exchange operator Cboe Global Markets, shows that dispersion rose after the coronavirus pandemic, as tech stocks soared while shares of other companies suffered. It has stayed high, in part because of the staggering appreciation of a select few stocks on A.I.’s cutting edge, analysts say. This is presenting an opportunity for Wall Street, as investment funds and trading desks pile into dispersion trading, a strategy that typically uses derivatives to bet that index volatility will remain low while turbulence in individual stocks will stay high. ‘It’s everywhere,’ said Stephen Crewe, a longtime dispersion trader and partner at Fulcrum Asset Management. He believes these dynamics have surpassed even the most hotly anticipated economic data in terms of their importance to financial markets. ‘It almost doesn’t matter about G.D.P. or inflation data at the moment,’ he added. The risk to investors is that stocks will again begin to move in the same direction, all at once — most likely because of a [totally organic] spark that ignites widespread selling.” • Hmm.

The Bezzle: “An alleged $100 million fraud scheme could affect up to 50,000 people. Here’s what to do if you’re one of them” [Self]. “If you have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), you may have had a hard time getting your medications refilled because of drug shortages that date back to 2022—which are still ongoing, BTW. But now a federal health care fraud case against Done Global Inc., a California-based digital health company that calls itself a ‘hybrid ADHD clinic,’ could make it even harder for up to 50,000 adults across the US, according to a CDC health advisory released last week. (The agency also said that people who use ‘other similar subscription-based telehealth platforms could experience a disruption to their treatment,’ although it’s not clear what companies they are talking about or how many more people might be affected.) According to the US Department of Justice, the company allegedly took advantage of telemedicine rules put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic to push its medical providers to prescribe Adderall and other stimulant drugs, even when they weren’t medically necessary, and spent millions of dollars on ‘deceptive’ social media advertising.” • Some Sackler mini-me?

Tech: If AI can’t make a hamburger….

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 49 Neutral (previous close: 47 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 39 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 2 at 12:42:35 PM ET.

Climate

News you can use, especially where mosquitos are a vector:

Book Nook

Never never never never never:

Games

“Fortnite’s Metallica concert showed how sprawling the game has become” [The Verge]. “Last weekend, Metallica graced the virtual stage in Fortnite, but the event was more than just a heavy metal concert. It was one piece in a weeks-long rollout of modes and content, which really drove home just how large and complex the game has become. The battle royale has steadily morphed into an entire ecosystem of games and experiences, and the Metallica crossover might’ve been the most complex to date.” • Next, political debates? Who will go first? Kamala?

Class Warfare

“The Anxiety Economy” [Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds]. “In summary: wage earners never recovered from the 2008 meltdown. No wonder the gap between the cheerleaders’ delusional insistence that we’re all getting richer in every way, every day and the lived reality of the work force who didn’t have the means to buy stocks at the 2009 bottom or buy a portfolio of rental houses in 2010. We’re told to stop being so darn negative even as the tsunami of inequality washes away the beach chairs of the bottom 90%. The Anxiety Economy is remarkably profitable for the top few and remarkably unhealthy for everyone else. They’re pleased to prescribe us meds to take the edge off the Anxiety Economy, but meds won’t fix what’s broken in our economy or social order.” • And some meds are not taken in pill form.

News of the Wired

“Meet the American who created highway rest areas, Allan Williams, small-town engineer” [FOX]. “Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, each in Detroit, Michigan, emerged as the world’s three biggest automakers early in the Roaring ’20s. Customers needed somewhere to go to make their engines purr – and a safe, convenient way to get there. The job fell upon the shoulders of small-town Michigan visionaries who paved the way for the automobile to leave the city and become synonymous with the open American highway. Allan Williams, the first-ever highway engineer in rural Ionia County, proved perhaps the most influential among them. He conceived and created America’s first roadside rest area in 1929. The idea took off faster than a big-block Motown muscle car 40 years later. The highway rest stop, however, was only the most visible of the many contributions Williams made to the speed, safety and convenience of the American highway system we all benefit from today. ‘He was living at a time when he had the ability to really do some big things and make some big changes in Michigan, but also actually in our nationwide history,’ Sigrid Bergland, a historian with the Michigan Department of Transportation, told Fox News Digital. Highway road maps, road signs and even snow plows were all influenced by his curiosity, intellect, varied skills and vision.” • Strange, looking back, to think that such seemingly permanent things as tbe Interstate Highway System, with its cloverleaf exits and rest stops, is younger than I am. And that credit cards — for gas — were once a new thing. Also, bugs smasked on the windshield….

“Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought” [Nature]. From the Abstract: “Here we bring recent evidence from neuroscience and allied disciplines to argue that in modern humans, language is a tool for communication, contrary to a prominent view that we use language for thinking. We begin by introducing the brain network that supports linguistic ability in humans. We then review evidence for a double dissociation between language and thought, and discuss several properties of language that suggest that it is optimized for communication. We conclude that although the emergence of language has unquestionably transformed human culture, language does not appear to be a prerequisite for complex thought, including symbolic thought. Instead, language is a powerful tool for the transmission of cultural knowledge; it plausibly co-evolved with our thinking and reasoning capacities, and only reflects, rather than gives rise to, the signature sophistication of human cognition.” • P

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WB writes: “Some nice-to-look-at, artsy-fartsy cacti reflections from Carefree, AZ.”

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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129 comments

  1. Jason Boxman

    Help wanted: Charting the challenge of tight labor markets in advanced economies

    For almost two decades, labor markets across advanced economies have tightened—and the trend is set to continue. This article provides a data-driven look via charts to understand the implications.

    No mention of COVID disability.

    n Canada, for instance, a recent House of Commons committee report acknowledged that the country has “longstanding issues with lack of supply of health professionals,” in part due to mental health issues and burnout exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which have led to retention issues.

    Nothing about disability, anywhere. Tons of cool graphs though.

  2. antidlc

    Biden’s still in it. He is not dropping out.

    From a White House correspondent:
    https://x.com/gabegutierrez/status/1808558625327362415

    President Biden on call with staff just now:

    “Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can, as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running.”

    “No one is pushing me out.”

    “I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.”
    12:49 PM · Jul 3, 2024

      1. XXYY

        +100

        It’s been amazing to me how much the affinity between Biden and a notorious racist like Strom Thurmond has been pushed into the background by apologizers and memory hole mavens. In a time when people are being summarily canceled for the most minor peccadillos, speaking movingly at Strom thurmond’s funeral about all your shared experiences and years of being the best of friends passes without a peep.

        The DEI movement apparently knows the predator’s rule that you should never try to eat anything bigger than your head.

    2. Carolinian

      Sounds like Hunter gave him a talking to. White House staff were reportedly disturbed by the now convicted felon being on hand as an adviser.

    3. Jason Boxman

      On the plus side, that takes most of the uncertainty about November’s election result away. Thanks Biden!

    4. ChrisFromGA

      Do they really think this is going to get better? It’s almost a week since the Bungle in the Jungle and the press are still hounding the WH about Joe’s status. Does he have dementia? Will he ever speak publicly again without a teleprompter and an Adderall/Ritalin stack?

      Absent a big event to distract them, this isn’t going away.

      1. Wukchumni

        It rather has the feel of King Edward VIII in the run-up to abdication, maybe a divorce would be good for the country.

    5. Katniss Everdeen

      biden says a lot of things.

      If obama wants him gone, he. will. be. gone.

      In a battle between the obama and biden factions of the democrat party, the obama faction will win every time. Guaranteed.

      Anyone who allows himself to be quoted as saying, “Never underestimate joe’s ability to fuck things up” will not hesitate to bring the hammer down if he decides it’s necessary, no explanation required. Guaranteed.

      Whether they know it or not, joe, jill, hunter et al. are way out of their league.

        1. Michael Fiorillo

          Or, to use Lenin’s (?) deft turn of phrase, support him the way a noose supports a hanged man.

        2. ambrit

          It’s Obama. He’ll give them enough hope to hang themselves.
          “I told you Big Guy. We should have gotten out at the top! Now we’re screwed.”

            1. Ben Panga

              The slogan has been updated for Biden24 and is no longer “Hope and Change”. It’s now “Dope and Mange”.

      3. NotTimothyGeithner

        Obama is a good fundraiser, but Biden is a constitutional officer with the pledged delegates. Also, lets not forget this is Joe Biden. I doubt Jill likes the Obamas having senior status.

        Importantly, Obama didn’t leave behind a new party establishment. Its very much the same faces or their heirs from before Obama. Biden may owe everything to Obama, but Obama has no real leverage. Biden doesn’t need to fundraise past November, and if he squeaks by (Trump might still keel over), he will still get to collect.

        Bringing the hammer down and Biden not resigning, delivers Trump.

        1. Dr. John Carpenter

          You have a really interesting point, and one that’s been in my head a lot. We give Obama credit for the Night of the Long Knives, as we should. But that was four years ago. It seems like the Obamas have spent more time in the pop culture arena than politics. I know there was an anonymous tweet here the other day claiming world leaders were circumventing Biden and going to Obama’s people for dealings, but I find that hard to believe and feel it would be coming up more in light of recent events if true.

          I put more weight in the stories about no love lost between the houses of Biden and Obama. No one can force Joe out of office (at least not in a manner that doesn’t involve the very long shot 25th or blackmail). And though the DNC has argued in court they can do whatever they want, I doubt taking pledged delegates from their former guy was what they had in mind.

          It really is that establishment thing, in my mind. Obama had a chance to establish something pretty powerful at the start of his presidency. Instead…well we all know what happened. It feels like he may be another one reaping what he sowed right about now. If Obama makes his move and Biden flips him the bird, not only does that deliver Trump, but it exposes Obama as powerless. Seems to me he’s only going to make a move if he knows he has muscle behind it and it would be wild to know what muscle he has in his corner.

          1. chris

            I think you’re right. I also think the fundraising thing is the only real power the Ds recognize anymore. If Obama leads them all away and says that Biden will either retire or go into the home stretch with no donor support, that might do it.

            Maybe we see a heartfelt plea from Michelle on a podcast explaining what it’s like to have to tell your husband, the President, some bad news, and let it roll with innuendo from there? I always had Hillary pegged for a Madame Defarge role in politics but perhaps Jill is sharpening her needles as we speak…

          2. Acacia

            Seems to me he’s only going to make a move if he knows he has muscle behind it and it would be wild to know what muscle he has in his corner.

            Like O. calling a favor somewhere to get a drone strike on the Biden cluster?

        2. mrsyk

          Some dates to remember for crystal ball gazing.
          July 19th proposed new date for the “roll call” that would officially nominate the democratic candidate.
          Aug 7th current date for above
          Aug 19-23 Team Blue convention, Chicago (could either be a ghost town or the hottest ticket out there)
          Nov 5 Election Day
          Jan 3 first day of congress
          Jan 20 Inauguration Day

          Presidential line of succession (the lawfare call option)
          VP
          House Speaker
          President pro tempore of the Senate

          1. scott s.

            Missing 2 key dates:

            11 December: day that governors/DC must submit certificates of electors

            17 December: day on which electors shall give their votes for pres and vp.

        3. bob

          “Importantly, Obama didn’t leave behind a new party establishment. Its very much the same faces or their heirs from before Obama. Biden may owe everything to Obama, but Obama has no real leverage.”

          This! Too many people give Obummer way too much credit. He loves that!

        4. XXYY

          Obama has always been outstandingly good at playing a hand with few cards in it. He pretty much came out of nowhere to become Senator and then President without too much support or history in the Democratic Party. Since leaving office he has tried very hard to play the role of kingmaker in the party, e.g. getting rid of Sanders when it looked as if he might go all the way, though perhaps now we are seeing the limits of his influence.

          Of course he is articulate and handsome, and being black has gone from being a liability to being an advantage at this point in US history. But many US politicians can claim similar advantages.

          I’m guessing if Obama had the power to do whatever he wanted, Biden would be gone. The fact that that looks unlikely tells us something important about Obama.

      4. Carolinian

        It won’t be Obama or Biden who decides but rather the press and the polls. And the press want him out because the longer he stays the greater the exposure of how they covered up the whole thing and now, apparently, are expected to continue covering it up.

        So Joe is gone. Somebody should tell him. He has only lasted this long because our fourth estate has been propping him up.

        1. chris

          If there’s any place I can be honest about the current state of affairs, it’s here on NC. I family blogging hate that you’re probably right. It doesn’t matter that we’ve had countless episodes showing Joe is not fit for duty. It doesn’t matter that we have ample evidence of at least three different factions running our government since Joe was elected. It doesn’t matter that in the rare times Joe speaks his staff instantly follow with corrections because the President didn’t mean what he said when he said it. No, we’re going to wait on polls, by people who can’t do math, and published by for profit entities. Because things like honor, integrity, truth, and the simple concept of what’s right is a joke to these people.

          That senile dofus has access and means to launch nuclear attacks. That aging ignoramus is keeping the US involved on 2 different wars and trying to rope us into a third, none of which have the official approval of congress. That mumbling moron is setting policy that will affect us for generations by not being able to resist the various cabals in his administration. The only defense he has against being tagged a war criminal is he really might not have known what he was doing at the time. But sure. Let’s wait for polls to tell us it’s time for him to go. JFC

          1. Carolinian

            Of course they ignore all the polls in favor of better health care etc. But the election polls they take seriously and maybe that’s not a bad thing. Depending how this turns out the Biden episode may show that you can’t fool enough of the people all of the time.

            Unfortunately that won’t bring back the dead in Ukraine and Gaza.

            Biden is more a disaster for the Dems than the Deep State which needs its own comeuppance–guillotines optional.

    6. Mikel

      What drugs are they going to use to pump up the current Presidential symbol (they all really are…just some are more coherent) at the upcoming NATO summit?

    7. ilsm

      “OMG he is.going to take us all with him”.

      Lots of seats and so forth riding with the idea “US has such good gang of appointees that the president can be vacuous “

  3. antidlc

    https://x.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1808224705221984272

    Andrew Feinberg
    @AndrewFeinberg
    Here’s my exchange with @PressSec
    in which I ask her why @POTUS
    can’t come to the briefing room to put concerns about his ability to rest.

    I also ask if he has Alzheimer’s, dementia or another degenerative condition. She said he does not.

    Video clip at the link.

    1. chris

      This right here is the important bit. There is an easy solution to answering all questions so they’re not even asked. The Biden administration refuses to take that step. Literally, a 30 second walk down the hall to where the press briefing is, and have the president hold forth on matters without a teleprompter or cue cards or handlers interfering. And they haven’t done it. Seems like they won’t do it in the future either. Perhaps that is because they got tired of having to tell everyone that the president didn’t mean what he said when he said it?

      Although I do find it rather rich that Miss Big Binder is being asked if her boss can respond to questions without a teleprompter. I think our policy regarding Ukraine and a dozen other topics clearly shows no one in this administration is capable of thinking on their feet.

      1. rowlf

        No Valdai Club format presentations in the US, with long question and answer sessions with no notes or teleprompters?

        The Global South/not-the-Global Billion are laughing at the US.

  4. Carolinian

    Re highways–100 year ago any cross country auto trip was considered a special adventure involving lots of flat tires. People and cargo traveled by train. Perhaps we should go back to that?

    Meanwhile I guiltily admit to loving the road. For Boomers it’s almost the definition of freedom. Jack Kerouac wrote a book about it.

    1. griffen

      Mom, apple pie, ice cream, and young teenager’s first automobile. Will future teenagers in the distant future patiently wait to own their first EV as commanded by the federal or state officials?

      Johnny Cash has a fun, witty tune about collecting parts from his fictional employment at GM. Okay he likely covered that from another artist, but it’s on a greatest collection Cash album.

      “One piece at a time,
      It wouldn’t cost me a dime,
      It’s the only one there is around”

      1. Carolinian

        See the USA in your Chevrolet. Hard not to like Dinah Shore.

        But I’m not being corny. We have this huge country with good highways (now) and no passport checks along the way.

        Ok there’s Canada and very ungrateful they are after we took all their singers and actors and comics. When I long ago went to Mexico they didn’t require passports either. Automotively once we ruled North America. It’s a pity the elites decided that wasn’t enough. That’s where the trouble started.

    2. Samuel Conner

      > Perhaps we should go back to that?

      As infrastructure crumbles, it may happen involuntarily.

      Re: cross-country by road, I read somewhere that an impetus for the construction of the Federal highway system (predecessor to the interstate system) was an attempt to move a significant land combat force across the country, coast to coast, by motor vehicle, undertaken some time not long after the end of WW1. IIRC, it took months. Apparently cross country by road, in those days, was more nearly “impossible” than “an adventure”.

      1. XXYY

        This was a young Dwight D Eisenhower who participated in this trip, and apparently left a lasting enough impression on him to help get the interstate highway system off the ground 40 years later.

    4. ilsm

      (President) Lt Col Eisenhower was War Dept observer on the first military motor transport company to cross the U.S. in 1919.

      80 odd days, a lot of breakdowns but long distance Army transport with motor vehicles was demonstrated

  5. Stephanie

    And I’m not joking. I cannot find the Tweet I wanted to pair with this; it was an image of a thirty-something couple replete with what are for me triggers or markers of conservative intent — cowboy hats and boots, the wrong sort of tattoo, mullets, general air of faintly menacing non-compliance — who were in fact upper crust working class and not conservative at all, let alone MAGA.

    Sounds like they’ve got a Cowboy Carter Pinterest aesthetic going on.

  6. Mark Gisleson

    I think the power in the Democratic party is much simpler than Stoller thinks. All decision-making resides in the party itself as the party has arrogated enormous powers to itself. A great deal of work goes into disguising that fact but ultimately all decisions are made at the top by the top for the top, the top being whoever you think is really in charge.

    A. Obama
    B. Jill Biden
    C. Israel
    D. CIA/intel

    Real power in so far as GOTV has always belonged to the base but the base can’t recruit volunteers let alone GOTV when no one cares. No one cares about Biden and no one cares about anyone who might replace Biden because they’re all from the same club that ain’t none of the rest of us in.

    And when they tell us who we’ve chosen, the people on stage will look just like America (including all the parts you’ve only read about but have never seen except maybe in the movies).

    That the base has the power to take this election away from Trump doesn’t make it their fault when that doesn’t happen. The base didn’t develop a strategy that relied on lawfare and massive and persistent reliance on lying which has caught up with the ‘tops’ as they bolster their new lies with old disproven to everyone but them lies.

    The people in charge will make the decisions and what happens is all on them. It would be nice if they’d at least stand up and wave to the crowd now and then to let us see who they are.

    1. lyman alpha blob

      Or –

      A. Citigroup
      B. Delaware based financial companies
      C. Israeli tech and weapons firms
      D. US military industrial complex execs

    2. Martin Oline

      I think A and D are the same thing so that makes three. If Obama works for the Agency the order is wrong.

    3. Cat Burglar

      The powers in the party will do what they need to do.

      The party lawyers argued in court against the suit brought by Sanders activists that the party was under no obligations to obey it’s own bylaws — they could go back to deciding things in smoke-filled rooms if they felt like it. And the case was dismissed.

      They will give us the selection they want us to have.

    4. NotTimothyGeithner

      1. The Biden family
      A. Obama/the others who bring in celeb donor.
      B. The Clinton courtier class
      C. The Congressional leadership who fundraise.
      D. the non-Clinton courtier class
      E. AIPAC
      F. MIC.

      The media is scattered about through these classes. I tend to think the msm would go Republican if Jeb! was viable.

  7. Samuel Conner

    > a switch to be thrown once and left on (like, say, plumbing)

    I sometimes wonder who is going to maintain the plumbing when nearly everyone is brain-damaged. OTOH, I suppose that if things reach that state, enforcement of public health regulations, such as “no open-air toilets in the back yard”, will have relaxed due to labor shortages, so maybe it will be OK, at least for sewage disposal. Not so sure about potable water, though.

  8. JohnA

    “I cannot find the Tweet I wanted to pair with this; it was an image of a thirty-something couple replete with what are for me triggers or markers of conservative intent — cowboy hats and boots, the wrong sort of tattoo, mullets, general air of faintly menacing non-compliance”

    Forgive me my ignorance, but what is the right sort of tattoo?

    1. ambrit

      A three colour rendition of “The Apotheosis of Saint Hillary the Lessor.” (Attributed to the School of Rand.)

  9. lyman alpha blob

    Lambert, if you are not aware of how the “Hawk Tuah girl” gained that sobriquet, I urge you to look it up.

    While I don’t know her personally, I’m guessing she is not a MENSA member. Unbelievable that this person has now gotten her 15 minutes for briefly noting a pron technique, or that we are supposed to care about her opinion on anything, much less political matters.

    As we are all well aware at NC, this is most definitely teh stupidest timeline.

    1. petal

      Yeah she’s pretty disgusting. If that’s what’s going for Biden, so be it. Maybe she’ll get a call from Dear Hunter.

    2. lambert strether

      > Lambert, if you are not aware of how the “Hawk Tuah girl” gained that sobriquet, I urge you to look it up

      I am aware of all Internet traditions. I thought her views were clarifying. (I also like that she wasn’t trying to become any kind of influencer; people tracked her down.)

      Musical interlude

    3. The Rev Kev

      Well if you cannot get confirmation of your political stance from three leggy girls, where can you get it from?

    4. Skk

      There was a community note and a correction posted by Laura Loomer on X to her original story. The Hawk-Tuah woman’s NO to Trump was her refusing to perform an “explicit sexual act ” on him, it wasn’t about not voting for Trump. Her voting intentions remain unknown.

  10. IM Doc

    I read with great horror, the above linked tweets about changing the author’s words to something that is more “readable.”

    It is as if we are bound and determined to do to literature what American Idol has done to our music. No talent needed.

    I find this whole idea personally offensive.

    A few weeks ago a very good friend of mine encouraged me strongly to read at least one Lew Archer novel from Ross Macdonald in my life. Having only vaguely heard of him before, I was not sure. But this friend has never steered me wrong. I looked up which one of his books was his best seller – and it turns out to be “Black Money” from 1966.

    And was I ever in for a treat. It was like reading Dashiell Hammett warped in time to the Rat Pack 1960s. Just amazing –

    And the prose is just delicious – I even started writing down examples –

    “The music was still going on, but the party had narrowed down to its had core and the focus had shifted to the bar. It wasn’t late as parties go, but in my absence most of the people had deteriorated, as if a sudden illness had fallen on them; manic-depressive psychosis, or a mild cerebral hemorrhage.

    Or

    “I waited in the dim hallway on a high-backed Spanish chair which Torquemada had made with his own hands.”

    Or

    “On the far side of the pool, in a sheltered corner behind a plate-glass screen, four white-haired ladies were playing cards with the grim concentration of bridge players. The three Fates plus one, I thought, wishing there was someone I could say it to.”

    I just dare that program of making reading “easier” to translate any of the above lines. “Easier” is not even close to “better”.

    What a joke. The movie Idiocracy is getting closer by the day.

    1. JBird4049

      >>>What a joke. The movie Idiocracy is getting closer by the day.

      I assume that this is the very deliberate goal of certain people as simple words makes for more vulnerable people more malleable and easily biddable; if people are not what you believe them to be or should be, make them so.

    2. Martin Oline

      You hit that one squarely on the head. I used to joke when I get old I will only need two books, the one I am reading now and the one I just finished and will read next. That time is fast approaching but I must have eight or nine of Kenny’s books.
      I have gathered all the old hardback Ross MacDonald books I could lay my hands on a couple decades back. Most are book clubs but I don’t care, I want them for the pleasure of reading them. His 1950’s California is a lost world that is a pleasure to re-visit. When I was there in the fifties I wasn’t allowed out of the yard. My grandfather lived in Hermosa Beach. When I lived in Marin County in the eighties it was a different place. A friend from LA told me a decade ago that my memories of orange groves and parks are better than what is there now. “Don’t go back, he said, You’re better off with your memories.” I’ll settle for a Ross MacDonald novel any day. Thanks for the quotes.

    3. Robert W Hahl

      It’s probably mostly about owning a copyright to the modified story. They don’t know if any these products will be popular, but they do know that they want to own the copyright if by chance some of them are.

    4. Mikel

      They’ll turn literature into bad children’s books. Too much mainstream popular music has reverted back to nursery rhyme-like melodies. Artists used to experiment with a variety of melodies – some could be very simple. These days it’s entire nursery rhyme melody catalogs.

      Infantilization continues….

        1. Ben Panga

          It’s interesting you say this. I recently spent a week in my homeland (England) and was genuinely shocked seeing vacuous three word (or three point) slogans everywhere.

          I knew that government messengers were doing it ad nauseum during early COVID but now was seeing it in airports, train security posters (“see it, say it, sort it”), shops, everywhere. Bristol station has multiple different 3 point slogans plastered on every surface, commanding you to do different things.

          All with the same 3 point rhythm and infantilised form of speech.

          Post-covid regression or something more mendacious? A bastardisation of the old management “take 3 things into a meeting” idea?

          Whichever, I really dislike the three point style, I find it condescending and aggressive. The added infantilism makes me quite rageful.

      2. ambrit

        Conan Doyle: Victorian London
        Georges Simenon: Paris
        Carl Rove: Washington DC

        All writers of crime fiction.

      3. John Anthony La Pietra

        . . . ::Donald Westlake:greater NYC area and selected points elsewhere including Uganda (Kahawa); Scotland (Nobody’s Perfect) — and Anguilla, the island that fought Britain in order to stay a British colony (Under an English Heaven).

    6. The Rev Kev

      Give a few years more and they will be coming out with a digital comic book version of those novels and they will be touted as keeping young minds engaged by the usual Silicon Valley hucksters.

      1. herman_sampson

        Many years ago there was a comic book series “Classics Illustrated.” I had “All Quiet on the Western Front”, which may have had the H.P. Lovecraft story “The Music of Eric Zann,” too.
        That’s the other fault of contemporary popular “culture”: no originalality.

    7. Lefty Godot

      Macdonald is the Holy Ghost to Hammett and Chandler’s Father and Son. National treasures, all three.

  11. JBird4049

    >>>What a joke. The movie Idiocracy is getting closer by the day.

    I assume that this a the very deliberate goal of certain people as simple words makes for simple people more malleable and easily biddable; if people are not what you believe them to be or should be, make them so.

    1. Amateur Socialist

      Orwell was on to this early, in 1984 Winston Smith’s friend is proudly announcing that the new dictionary revision has been released and it’s smaller than ever!

    2. fjallstrom

      At this point, I think it is giving them to much credit. It’s a boom. Investors are throwing money at anything called AI. From this spouts the rest, the hucksters need to create AI products and make the line go up, so they can get more investor money, and the investors can sell on shares to pension funds.

      What they claim to have is a thinking machine, but what they have is a bullshit machine. So they need to create new markets for bullshit.

  12. ambrit

    ” …it looks like a straitjacket to me. Fitting, I suppose.” Tight fitting I would imagine. [Too many puns available here. Pun overload in progress.]
    A multicultural joke here? The ‘Good Doctor’ is all in white. It suggests purity in the West and death in the East.
    One can overthink the photograph, but then I am happy to see evidence of higher cognition on the part of our “Eternal Overlords and Ladies” under any circumstances.

    1. Judith

      Her posture and facial expression, along with the text, say to me “I am in charge.”

      Just call her Genocide Jill.

      1. britzklieg

        Hey Genocide Jill, what’s in that pill? Genocide Jill.
        Hey Genocide Jill, that’s quite a kill, Genocide Jill.

        The campaigns over for his brain has turned to mush
        To think replacing him yourself must be a rush
        Is that your plan since all the others have been crushed?
        All the children sing

        Hey Genocide Jill, what’s in that pill? Genocide Jill.
        Hey Genocide Jill, that’s quite a kill, Genocide Jill.

        Deep in the basement now, the failing POTUS lies
        Joe and the donkey show were taken by surprise
        Did Doctor Biden zap him right between the eyes?
        All the children sing

        Hey Genocide Jill, what’s in that pill? Genocide Jill.
        Hey Genocide Jill, that’s quite a kill, Genocide Jill.

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

        1. ambrit

          Ouch! That’s a sing along if I ever heard one.
          That Vogue cover could be ‘spun’ as the Biden’s White Album.

    2. DJG, Reality Czar

      ambrit: I had a similar insight. The photographer is relentlessly (if beige can be relentless) posing The Doctor against beige. I suppose the effect the two of them wish to induce is “calming.”

      Yet, once past looking at the image, my mind retains that white coat as an intimation of death.

    3. John Anthony La Pietra

      When I saw the photo, it had me thinking they were trying to give the impression of a medical doctor’s lab coat . . . to reinforce the misoverestimation that Dr. Jill is that kind of doctor. Which is especially unfortunate considering that there is an M.D. Dr. Jill in the Presidential race:

      https://www.jillstein2024.com/meet_jill

  13. Chris Cosmos

    If COVID breaks out again in a big way the main problem will be that most people don’t trust Big Pharma or any medical authority. We know that these groups are nearly always about money and cannot be trusted. “Science” has not had a good record on this matter and clearly has shown to many if not most that the scientific authorities also cannot be trusted since they usually get funding from Big Pharma or the government (which is probably the same thing at this point). For me, my reflex about almost anything is that if the government says “X”, then I will say “Y” and be right more than half the time. Whatever the truth is with the clearly manufactured weapon-grade bio weapon aka COVID 19 we cannot trust any authority just as we cannot trust the NY Times and its reporting on (any) war.

    As for the whole Biden craziness–anyone familiar with dementia has known that Biden is deeply in the woods there simply by seeing is body language very stiff with vacant looks etc. Dementia does not seem to totally destroy intelligence that much. We also have to remember that Biden has had traumatic brain injury (an aneurism) and that, I am told, never quite goes away.

    1. IM Doc

      Dementia does not seem to totally destroy intelligence that much.

      After dealing with hundreds/thousands of dementia patients, I would say that is not my experience at all.

      It starts often with memory loss. And then comes the executive function issues. And finally, you cannot distinguish the patient and their behavior from that of a 3 year old – and then at some point thereafter the “look out into eternity phase” is entered. At some point in this progression, almost all of them lose their intellect. It is just part of the process.

      The anuerysm per se is going to do nothing to the brain. It just sits there. Some of them do get big enough to cause headaches, seizures, etc. The problem with anuerysms is they get to a certain point in size and then they burst. The brain has basically zero capacity for any kind of pressure changes like that – and the area in the immediate vicinity that feels the pressure almost always gets nuked. This is permanent. And one of the most fascinating things about the brain – when blood escapes outside of the blood vessels, the blood cells themselves and the contents of the plasma are HIGHLY TOXIC to the brain cells. The blood will seep into the jello-like brain substance around the anuerysm, and this causes damage in the extreme. However, this is not a traumatic brain injury like football players, etc. Anuerysmal issues are much worse. I am not certain if Biden actually had one rupture or not. Looking back on my career – patients who have had a rupture should not be a shoeshine boy much less a President. If he just had one surgically removed or coiled that is much different and not as big a deal to his cognitive function.

  14. Sardonia

    Just read an article saying that Kamala is the one who will replace Joe – no Newsom, Whitmer, etc. – the inside powers have decreed, and there are quotes from major donors who really, really do not want her, but have succumbed to the fact that there is just no way to get around her –

    https://www.reuters.com/world/us/vp-harris-top-choice-replace-biden-election-race-if-he-steps-aside-sources-say-2024-07-03/

    I can only imagine that the RNC is gearing up TV ads that, given how she got her start in politics, put her side-by-side with the Hawk Tuah girl.

    Or maybe some deep fake videos of Willie Brown instructing her – “C’mon, ya gotta hawk tuah that thang!!”

    Can’t wait to see ’em.

      1. ambrit

        In politics it’s called “glad handing.”
        And Kamala, go on now, she’s the original “San Quentin Quail.” [She locked up enough otherwise innocent Californians to genuinely earn that sobriquet.]
        The Bard was right, all so many years ago. Today’s duopoly political scheme really is making “the beast with two backs.” Both ripe for scratching. While they get the gold, we get the scratch.

        1. Wukchumni

          Who doesn’t love a nonsensical non sequitur, or better yet a whole string of them?

    2. ambrit

      The first election with 18+ only, video ads?
      It reminds me of a story from the first half of the previous century where a mid-level Hollywood actress is described as having “…slept her way to the middle.”

      1. Wukchumni

        Nope springs eternal, but perhaps she’ll add croutons in that mysterious word salad addressing…

        She only has to beat Liz Truss’s salad days marker to not be the failure d’jour, right?

        1. ambrit

          Hmmm. La Femme d’Nuit sounds about centre right.
          And croutons? Please, please, don’t tell me that that is vinaigrette dressing.

    3. wendigo

      Will those ads be paired with ads about adulterers with porn stars and playboy bunnies?

      Not too sure the RNC wants to go down that road especially with the push for the Ten Commandments in schools.

    5. NotTimothyGeithner

      Not that I’m a fan, but the random state-wides are non-entities. They would have no democratic legitimacy. They’ve done nothing to build records that would give them profiles similar to say Frank Church or Birch Bayh.

      Maybe Pritzker or Shapiro won’t be empty suits, but I kind of suspect they would run as caretakers when Biden was in trouble prior to the debate. Given their records, I feel like anyone but Harris would amount to the DNC selecting Tim Kaine.

    6. lambert strether

      > Kamala is the one

      (Hearing “Billie Jean” in the background, for our lyricists)

      Apparently the money raised for one campaign is very hard to move to another campaign, so if not Biden, Harris. (“But I didn’t really want the insurance policy!”)

      The only potential candidate whom self-fund is The Big Boy, J.B. Pritzker. Make of that what you will.

      1. Wukchumni

        Pritzker is my choice if we were playing proper name Scrabble, hopefully landing it on a triple word score.

      2. Ben Panga

        Harking back to your earlier post, a long series of hubristic errors resulting in a comically incompetent candidate becoming the only hope to “save our democracy” seems like proper farce territory.

        I’ve recently rediscovered classic British farce through the 70s TV show “Are You Being Served?”. It’s an antidote of sorts.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prl6VAzNwCM

  15. Wukchumni

    I just had Napoleon Obamaparte hit me up for $5 to propel Joe & Kamala to the universe and beyond, presumably.

    Why five bucks?

    2. ambrit

      Oh, so now the DNC is running a “Buy Me a Cup of Coffee” campaign?
      “Hit that button folks! Our Democracy depends on it! If you can’t join us at the fundraising dinner, (only $100,000 a plate,) then chip in for coffee!”

  16. JM

    For the family/friends question, I’d agree – I expected my family especially to be more critical or curious about what was going on and how things have changed. We’re all very “midwest nice” so no one has said anything pointed about it and I no longer bring it up. The last time I did was over a year ago and I was told by the family member in question that they wanted to move on.

    Basically the same with friends and acquaintances, many have gone to college, and one was masking until just over a year ago. But generally they also started avoiding talking (or thinking I guess) about COVID as soon as they could. None of them are dumb, even if they aren’t all rapier wits; I don’t know what to make of it, but it’s been rather disappointing. Especially the couple of people I know who actively started ignoring reality.

  17. Robert W Hahl

    I suppose that the purple light behind the fan attracts mosquitoes, so why not just hang fly paper under a purple light? Much quieter.

  18. Jason Boxman

    Up to 2 years after Covid, persistent virus and T cell activation in multiple tissues, especially high in gut

    https://x.com/erictopol/status/1808564074877440485?s=46

    Moreover, because the gut was one of the sites of activated T cell enrichment, the authors analyzed gut biopsies from a subset of individuals with Long Covid. In these samples, the authors were able to identify the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA; this feature was consistent across all five samples analyzed. These data suggest that viral persistence and sustained immune activation are linked to Long Covid.

  19. Willow

    >Jill Biden, Vogue cover girl

    Jill’s going to make Joe hand the nomination to her!

  20. kareninca

    Because I am not easily bored I go to reddit/covid/positive absolutely every day and read the descriptions that people give of their new cases. Over the past few days the numbers have been trending up a bit, and now today there are a LOT of posts.

  22. ChrisPacific

    I’m guessing the photos of movie stars surrounded by state of the art COVID protection isn’t because they are notably more switched on or aware than the general population, but because of insurance.

    An unexpected injury or illness to a major star can set filming back by weeks and cost many millions of dollars, so it’s common for them to carry insurance policies with very high dollar figures. The premiums on those are expensive any way you slice it, but they’re a good deal less expensive if you’re taking reasonable precautions and not going out of your way to get injured/infected. And I guarantee you that if there’s one group of people who know exactly what the COVID risks are and which mitigations work and how well, it’s actuaries.

  23. Wukchumni

    The Hades & the Hades nots…

    Today is a cooker, around 108 for those of you scoring @ home, and it’ll be that temperature or more for the next couple weeks, and the power company has already shut off a bunch of peoples electricity and we’re early in the game.

    There’s wildfires everywhere, and that’s before the official day of fireworks, yikes!

    We’ll be almost exactly a few miles up @ 10,500 feet @ Moose Lake, and the forecast is around 72 degrees, one way to beat the heat is to go higher, or if you don’t have a half-pint Himalaya near you, go lower-think Coober Pedy.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy

    1. The Rev Kev

      Meanwhile here in Oz it is freezing cold and I am about to grab another coffee to try to warm up. Won’t trade you though as when it gets cold, you can always throw on another jumper but when it is hot, there is not a damn thing that you can do.

      Heat wise, you seem to have beaten the odds by taking a page from military tactics – and seizing the high ground. :)

    2. Jeff V

      Recently watched our local amateur musical theatre company put on “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”. It was excellent, but I’m never quite sure if Coober Pedy is a real place.

  25. The Rev Kev

    “Whitmer Disavows ‘Draft Gretch’ Movement — and Delivers A Warning to Biden”

    When her name was mentioned as a replacement for old Joe, she must have gotten nervous that Biden would seek to destroy her. So is this why there are not that many possible candidates on offer to replace old Joe? That any with talent are crushed as a matter of course. I understand that with the Democrats that you have really old members like Nancy Pelosi who for years got rid of younger challengers to the point that there was a generational gap of qualified Democrats behind them.

    1. Screwball

      I’m in NW Ohio so I get to follow Whitmer pretty easy given the local news. Not a fan. If I remember right, her and Trump got into a pissing match over something, maybe COVID years ago, I don’t remember the details. Trump said something about “that woman from Michigan” and of course she had that very saying on her T-shirt next time she had the chance to exploit it.

      That’s just wallowing in the political mud – be above that. I think she is a snake who should find her way back into anywhere but politics. I also think, and can’t prove it of course, this little episode was her trying to get attention.

      Go away.

  26. steppenwolf fetchit

    . . . ” In 2020, a choir followed the COVID protocols at the time – washing their hands and staying feet apart from each other – but the virus still spread, resulting in two deaths. It confirmed aerosol researchers’ belief that the virus was airborne. https://cbsn.ws/4cDcfLE ” . . .

    . . . ” How is it that churches never picked up on this? Why didn’t pastors protect their congregations?” . . .

    Because real Christians don’t wear masks. Didn’t Herman Cain say that?

    1. The Rev Kev

      What gets me about that incident where the bulk majority of that choir was infected was that the lesson was sitting there in plain sight – that this virus was spread by aerosol transmission. And yet it was denied by the WHO, the CDC, health authorities throughout the world. In fact nearly everybody whose job it was to deal with a pandemic. And Lambert’s excellent collection today of tweets to do with the pandemic right now shows that they won. Great Barrington won. They got the authorities to ignore the fact that getting herd immunity against a Coronavirus was impossible and pretended that the opposite was true so that the economy would not have a sad. As a world civilization, we failed because our elites were worried about the performance of their stock portfolios.

  27. upstater

    NYT travel advice!

    You Tested Positive for Covid. Can You Still Travel?

    I’d planned to travel, but I’m sick with Covid. What should I do?

    In short: You should probably delay or cancel your trip.
    If you tested positive or are experiencing Covid symptoms, which include fever, chills, fatigue, a cough, a runny nose, body aches and a headache, the C.D.C. recommends that you stay home and keep away from others.
    According to its latest guidelines, the agency advises waiting until at least 24 hours after you are fever-free and your overall symptoms are improving before going back to normal activities, including travel.
    …
    How can I stay safe while traveling?
    Wearing a mask on a plane or in crowded areas is still a good idea, said Ms. Sowards. “Respiratory droplets are the main carrier of Covid, so protecting yourself is paramount, especially if you are immunocompromised or have chronic health conditions.”
    If you do get sick, start wearing a mask and using over-the-counter medications such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen for fever or joint aches, Ms. Sowards advised.

    Of course not a word about the type of mask…

  29. Martin Oline

    I used to work in manufacturing and an insurance agent once told us that they had a death & dismemberment clause that paid double. I asked him if you had to be both dead and dismembered. No guts, no gory!
    Tonight in the news:
    Two people have been injured and one is missing after an explosion at a General Dynamics weapons factory in Camden, Arkansas. The facility produces Javelin and Hellfire warheads, and charges for artillery shells.
    “At this time, we are working with first responders and can confirm the incident resulted in at least two injuries and one missing individual,” Whaley said in a statement.

    1. Jason Boxman

      And that’s probably like the only facility in the United States that does this. An arsenal of Democracy we are not.

  31. Lefty Godot

    Howard Dean said in 2004: “It’s time that Democrats address guys with gun racks in the back of their trucks.” He was, naturally, excoriated for this (and was shortly thereafter defenestrated for trying to make the Party viable in all 50 states).

    What was impressive was the very short interval between Dean’s surprising success with his 50 State Strategy and Obama’s kicking him to the curb. They couldn’t wait to get rid of Howard. Like they couldn’t wait to defang Bernie and disillusion all the masses that mobilized on his behalf. Maybe they just don’t want to be popular?

  32. DJG, Reality Czar

    Curiouser and curiouser:

    “They see our empathy and compassion as a vulnerability.” Jill Biden.

    Hillary Clinton also has been blabbering about Joe’s mighty compassion.

    As a bad Catholic who has read the Flowers of Saint Francis of Assisi, and as a bad Buddhist who, nonetheless, knows the Metta Sutra, I can tell you that we are being treated to coordinated sloganizing, inspired by in-house Democratic Party focus groups.

    These are the same brilliant peeps who helped Hillary with “deplorables” and “fifth columnists.”

    The idea that Joe Biden is somehow Kannon, bodhisattva of compassion, is laughable. Two proxy wars (and don’t mention the slaughtered generation of men in Ukraine or the no,no-it’s-not-a-genocide in Gaza) and foreign-policy advisors cooking up a war with China, and I’m supposed to think that Joe is Jizō?

    Watch for these words to keep bubbling up till white liberals have ruined them thoroughly.

  33. Amateur Socialist

    The new unity ticket will be unveiled in September: Jeb and Hillary. Bipartisan consensus! Together again for the first time!

    You read it here first.

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