By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Bird Song of the Day
I looked for another species of songbird that mimics, and came up with the Thrasher.
Brown Thrasher, Langford Creek Road, Tompkins, New York, United States.
In Case You Might Miss…
- Kamala campaign’s tendency to lie
- Trump’s suit.
- Covid and the schools; nothing has been learned.
- Enormous Social Security hack.
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 one hundred days to go!
Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:
More Blue on the map. Trump still leads nationally, but some swing states moving toward Kamala. In particular, I’m no insider, but if I were on Team Trump, Georgia’s drop from +3.6 to this week’s +0.6 might cause me to chew my hands. Georgia? Really? Atlanta burbs no longer sitting it out? Can any readers from Georgia clarify?
“The Fight To Redefine the 2024 Race for President” [Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report]. “A new Cook Political Report Swing State Project Survey conducted by BSG and GS Strategy Group shows Vice President Kamala Harris leading or tied with former President Donald Trump in all but one of the seven battleground states. Overall, she holds a narrow lead of 48% to 47% in those states in the head-to-head. Harris has closed the gap with Trump since the last Swing State Project survey in May, when Trump led President Joe Biden by three points overall, and was ahead or tied in every one of the seven swing states.” Handy chart:
I’m sure directionally Cook Political Report is correct. But that 4-8% swing in Pennsylvania? I’m dubious (because I’ve seen no anecdotes to support it, though readers may supply some).
* * * Kamala (D): “Harris campaign’s Google ads rewrite news headlines” [Axios]. “The Harris campaign has been editing news headlines and descriptions within Google search ads that make it appear as if the Guardian, Reuters, CBS News and other major publishers are on her side, Axios has found. It’s a common practice in the commercial advertising world that doesn’t violate Google’s policies, but the ads mimic real news results from Search closely enough that they have news outlets caught off guard…. The mainstream media industry is already fighting assertions of bias. These ads, even though they comply with Google’s rules, could leave media outlets further vulnerable to charges of partisanship.” • It’s unclear to me whether Axios broke the story, but here are some examples:
We researched and found many examples of the Harris campaign using this misleading tactic of rewriting headlines in Google search results to falsely imply support for her campaign.
We found no evidence of the Trump or Kennedy teams using similar tactics. pic.twitter.com/8VSqKd7aMG
— AllSides (@AllSidesNow) August 14, 2024
Back to Axios:
I was shocked yesterday when I saw Axios publish an investigation reflecting negatively on Kamala's campaign.
But soon as the reporter, @sarafischer, was attacked for doing it, she immediately denigrated her own scoop, saying it was no big deal and Kamala did nothing wrong. pic.twitter.com/DQS03k2rpJ
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) August 14, 2024
Collective self-censorship by the PMC, exactly as with Biden’s cognitive decline. (As for the Harris campaign, exactly as with the Vance couch, if you believe the “joy”/”honeymoon” narrative, they don’t have to do this. But they do it anyhow.)
Kamala (D): “Behind the Curtain: The Harris plan to redefine herself” [Axios]. “A big and fair question is: What does Harris really believe? Her bet: whatever she says in the small, three-month window of her snap campaign will be what sticks. Harris knows most people know little about her. So she believes she can define herself, even if it includes flip-flops and co-opts. ‘She can’t break the glass ceiling with a weak foundation,’ Donna Brazile, a former Democratic National Committee chairwoman who has known Harris since the vice president was an up-and-coming D.A. in San Francisco. ‘She knows she has to be tough.'” • But she won’t give Lina Khan a hug….
Kamala (D): “Kamala’s Marxist Roots” [Issues & Insights]. “In a mixed system such as ours, which loses ground almost every day to communist theory, Marxism ideology, no matter how it’s dressed up, rejects property rights; chokes economic growth; divides people instead of producing a classless society; corrupts institutions; creates, rather than abolishes, and empowers a debased ruling class; and goads its adherents to “democratize” – that is, to take over, seize in the name of the people – business and industry. In practice, and in every case, the principles of Marxism undermine the only organizational structure that has allowed the masses to escape grinding poverty – capitalism.” • Wait. These guys want a “classless society”? How’s that working out?
Trump (R): Derek Guy is one of my guilty pleasures:
Trump (R): “Will Trump End Elections? Anatomy of a Failed Hoax” [RealClearPolitics]. Interesting summary of Alinsky, a bugbear for conservatives (but I’ve got to admit there’s something to this take). But for me this is the key part: “Two weeks ago, Democrats and the mainstream media were caught red-handed as they tried to jump-start a new hoax that suggested Trump would cancel future elections if he were elected this year…. The part of Trump’s speech that was played or quoted ad infinitum by mainstream media for those three days was this: ‘Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians … In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.’ A real journalist would look for answers before running with a hugely damaging and potentially slanderous story. But this episode demonstrates conclusively that there are very few real journalists left in America.” Readers know that you should always check the transcript when the press quotes Trump. From the transcript:
And by the way, Christians have to vote. You know, I don’t want to scold you, but do you know Christians do not vote proportionately, they don’t vote like they should. They’re not big voters … They have to vote. If they don’t vote, we’re not going to win the election. If you do vote, we’re going to win in a landslide. Too big to rig. We’re gonna win in a landslide. … You know, you have tremendous power, but you just don’t know that. But you have to use that power. Christians are a group that’s known not to vote very much. You have to go out at least this election, just get us into that beautiful White House. Vote for your congressmen and women. Vote for your senators. We will change this country for the better. This country will be great again like never before. You gotta vote. … This election will be the most important election in the history of our country. We’re going to save our country with this election.
The author misfires a bit by not including the complete transcript; this looks like a lead-in to the “You won’t have to do it anymore” passage, which in context looks a lot more like “Please do it just his once for me.” Again, Democrats are so, well, weird. Gawd knows there are enough legitimate quotes to ding Trump on; see yesterday’s Trump/Musk transcript (hat tip, marym). So why make sh*t up? They don’t even have to do it, so why do they do it?
Kennedy (I): “New York State Trial Court Removes Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., From the Ballot” [Balllot Access News]. The decision. “On August 12, a New York state trial court judge in Albany removed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., from the ballot, on the grounds that his address on his declaration of candidacy was not accurate. Cartwright v Kennedy, 906349-24, Albany Co. Supreme Court…. The judge had refused to let Kennedy make arguments about the constitutionality of the law. He will appeal. The decision does not mention Trump v Anderson, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that said Article Two implicitly bars letting states reject presidential candidates from the ballot, thus creating a “patchwork.” Nor does the decision deal with the point that the true candidates in a presidential election in November are the candidates for presidential elector. This is only the second time in U.S. history that a presidential candidate has been removed from a general election ballot on the basis that a residence address on an election document is not accurate.” By contrast, OR and WV just approved Kennedy’s signatures. “Our Democracy”! UPDATE The judge in the case lost their jobs due to “ethical missteps.” New York Democrats can sure pick ’em MR SUBLIMINAL *** cough *** Judge Engoron *** cough ***!
Kennedy (I): “WA Democratic Party pushing to keep Robert Kennedy Jr. off the ballot” [Washington State Standard]. “The state Democratic Party wants presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. kept off ballots in Washington this November. It contends the 4,181 signatures submitted by We the People in support of Kennedy’s nomination were not collected at a party convention as required by state law, making him ineligible to be one of voters’ choices. Kennedy’s campaign website listed various events and locations, like the Olympia Farmers Market, where registered voters could sign nomination petitions but that doesn’t comport with the law’s requirement, Democratic Party lawyers argued in an Aug. 9 letter to Secretary of State Steve Hobbs…. ‘Simply gathering signatures does not constitute a convention,’ they wrote.” • Ballot Access News comments: “The procedure that Kennedy used has been normal in Washington state for over 30 years. Although the state law talks about attendees at a nominating convention, that has long been interpreted to mean an outdoor meeting, with passersby signing, is permitted.”
* * * MN: “‘Squad’ Rep. IIhan Omar wins primary against repeat challenger” [Axios]. “U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) defeated repeat challenger Don Samuels in Tuesday’s Democratic Primary, the AP reports. Omar’s victory in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District is a win for the progressive ‘Squad,’ which lost two other members in primaries this year following heavy spending by groups affiliated with the pro-Israel AIPAC. Samuels, a former Minneapolis City Council member, came within 2 percentage points of defeating Omar in 2022 after a late infusion of cash to boost his bid. Omar significantly outraised her opponent this time, and the rematch failed to attract the same levels of outside spending that it did in 2022.” • IOW, AIPAC sat this one out.
“AIPAC had some recent wins but it isn’t invincible” [Responsible Statecraft]. “The electoral victories of Reps. Massie, Omar, Tlaib, and Ocasio-Cortez should offer some hope to lawmakers who, for example, do not believe that the U.S. should continue providing billions of dollars in aid to Israel without conditions. Perhaps AIPAC isn’t so invincible after all.” • Yeah, but on the other hand, who wants $7 million dumped into your opponent’s campaign coffers… I don’t think “AIPAC isn’t so invincible after all” is a straw man, exactly, but they can tilt any race in their direction whenever they want.
Our Famously Free Press
“News outlets were leaked insider material from the Trump campaign. They chose not to print it” [Associated Press]. “At least three news outlets were leaked confidential material from inside the Donald Trump campaign, including its report vetting JD Vance as a vice presidential candidate. So far, each has refused to reveal any details about what they received. Instead, Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post have written about a potential hack of the campaign and described what they had in broad terms…. Politico wrote over the weekend about receiving emails starting July 22 from a person identified as ‘Robert’ that included a 271-page campaign document about Vance and a partial vetting report on Sen. Marco Rubio, who was also considered as a potential vice president. Both Politico and the Post said that two people had independently confirmed that the documents were authentic.” Pretty sloppy. Was there internal evidence? Anything forensic? More: “What’s unclear is who provided the material. Politico said it did not know who ‘Robert’ was and that when it spoke to the supposed leaker, he said, “I suggest you don’t be curious about where I got them from.'” • Oddly, nobody’s suggesting that the documents came from the Democrats, even though they have form (the Steele Dossier). So perhaps the news outlets know that’s the story and are worried about getting into it.
Realignment and Legitimacy
“‘Neoliberal capitalism’ has contributed to the rise of fascism, says Nobel laureate” [ABC Australia]. About Joseph Stiglitz’s new book, “The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society.” More: “He spends a lot of time talking about the economic freedoms that are required for the majority of people to flourish. He talks about the importance of someone’s ‘opportunity set‘ — the set of options available to someone during their life, given the resources at their disposal — and how it determines their freedom to act, and what can be gained by good economic and social systems that provide someone with the freedom to live up to their potential. ‘People who are barely surviving have extremely limited freedom,’ he writes. ‘All their time and energy go into earning enough money to pay for groceries, shelter, and transportation to jobs … a good society would do something about the deprivations, or reductions in freedom, for people with low incomes. It is not surprising that people who live in the poorest countries emphasise economic rights, the right to medical care, housing, education, and freedom from hunger. They are concerned about the loss of freedom not just from an oppressive government but also from economic, social, and political systems that have left large portions of the population destitute.” “‘When you understand economic freedom as freedom to act, it immediately reframes many of the central issues surrounding economic policy and freedom,’ he says.”
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, KF, 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!
Airborne Transmission: Covid
“Relationship between Exhaled Aerosol and Carbon Dioxide Emission Across Respiratory Activities” [Environmental Science and Technology]. “Exhaled CO2 is strongly correlated with mean particle number (r = 0.81) and mass (r = 0.84) emission rates for the nonvocalized exercise activities. However, exhaled CO2 is poorly correlated with mean particle number (r = 0.34) and mass (r = 0.12) emission rates during activities requiring vocalization. These results demonstrate that in most real-world environments vocalization loudness is the main factor controlling respiratory particle emission and exhaled CO2 is a poor surrogate measure for estimating particle emission during vocalization. Although measurements of indoor CO2 concentrations provide valuable information about room ventilation, such measurements are poor indicators of respiratory particle concentrations and may significantly underestimate respiratory particle concentrations and disease transmission risk.” • So yes, the CO2 meter is good to assess how bad the air in the plane is. But if you’ve got a loud talker in the next seat, look out MR SUBLIMINAL Extroverts are gonna kill us all. One reason never to allow cellphones on planes. NOTE You know what would be great, if the data could be gathered? Covid infection among Quiet Car passengers on Amtrak vs. regular passengers.
Transmission: H5N1
CDC fighthing airborne transmission tooth and nail again, this time with H5N1:
It’s fair season, so before you and your family head to an agricultural fair, learn the actions you can take to keep everyone healthy and protected against #H5N1 #birdflu.
More here: https://t.co/K4XI5Fi7df pic.twitter.com/dCY6GxcgZ5
— CDC Flu (@CDCFlu) August 13, 2024
Note that a milking operation, which I presume state fairs will have, may spread H5N1 via aerosolized milk, so even in an extremely conservative scenario, one should mask (or “should consider,” as we say these days).
Testing and Tracking: Wastewater
I suppose this is good news, even at this late date:
An update on @CDCgov's plans to roll out H5-specific wastewater testing@nirav_uscdc told reporters today, at briefing discussing H5N1 response, that agency is now
"working to roll out more widespread H5 specific wastewater testing"https://t.co/wBhbkl8ZJG https://t.co/PBNU46xkCU pic.twitter.com/PDoL6HnmN6
— Alexander Tin (@Alexander_Tin) August 13, 2024
However, given the way CDC butchered Covid wastewater testing, perhaps not.
Transmission: Covid
“COVID transmission on the rise as students head back to class” [ABC30]. “‘Right now, we are seeing high levels of COVID circulating in our community, so we want parents to take precautions for their children as they start the school year,’ said Dr. Trinidad Solis, Fresno County’s Deputy Public Health Officer. Dr. Solis says those precautions include getting the flu and COVID vaccines when they come out this fall and also practicing good hygiene. ‘It’s important to teach our kids to wash their hands regularly and practice good respiratory hygiene, meaning that if they’re coughing or sneezing, they can do so in their sleeve instead of their hands,’ said Dr. Solis.” • [pounds head on desk]. After four years. What a catastrophic failure of public health (if failure it be). Could be a bumpy ride, given that levels are already high…
“As students head back to class, are schools ready to handle COVID-19?” [ABC7]. “[Kim Baumann, the lead nurse in Gwinnett County] said one of the ways officials are preparing for the new school year is to send reminders through schools’ newsletters, websites and other media about best practices to stay safe, including ‘Good hand washing, (and) using respiratory hygiene, as far as covering your coughs and sneezes.’ Baumann also said there is a team of custodians who make sure schools, particularly in high-touch areas, are cleaned and sanitized throughout the day, especially during peak season of respiratory viruses.” • [sigh]. Not a word on ventilation:
One would think the “school closures were the end of Western Civilization”-crowd would be pushing for ventilation and masking with equal vehemence, but n-o-o-o-o-o….
“Mid-South elementary school shuts down due to COVID cases” [FOX13] “HUMBOLDT, Tenn. – Just days into the new school year, one Mid-South elementary school has already had to shut down due to an uptick in COVID cases. Students at Stigall Primary School in Humboldt, Tenn., about 90 miles northeast of Memphis, started school on August 1. Parents told FOX13 that they got a letter on Monday night from the district telling them that students needed to stay home Tuesday as the district works to sanitize the building. ‘Everyone’s like, ‘COVID is back, COVID is back,’ Jessica Williamson, a parent of a first grader at Stigall Primary, said. ‘I just feel like it didn’t really go anywhere.'” You feel that way because it is that way. More: “It’s the second full week of school for Stigall Primary School students, but instead of math class and recess, Williamson’s daughter and her classmates are at home. ‘Those are little kids. They’re the most prone to put things in their mouths, to touch each other, to just share germs,’ Willamson said.” Fomite transmission is not a thing. More: “Yesterday, after all the students left the school, there was a deep clean done, disinfecting every surface,’ Ginger Carver, the communications director for the school district, said. ‘This way, the school is dormant today with no one in it.'” • Fomites are not a thing, so deep cleaning is useless. Four years in, and we don’t understand transmission. We haven’t even made the effort to understand transmission, even to protect our children…. What a mess.
Sequelae: Covid
“Long COVID is a $1 trillion problem with no cure. Experts plead for governments to wake up” [Fortune]. “‘I think they (government agencies) are itching to pretend that COVID is over and that long COVID does not exist,’ says Ziyad Al-Aly, director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center at Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System and lead author of the review. ‘It is much more pleasant to pretend as if emergency department visits and hospitalizations haven’t been rising sharply this summer.’… In a Nature Medicine review this week, Al-Aly and several other top researchers lay out a difficult truth: Long COVID has already affected an estimated 400 million people worldwide, a number the authors say is likely conservative, at an economic cost of about $1 trillion annually—equivalent to 1% of the global economy. Moreover, the risk of a person being hit with long COVID rises with repeated infections of the virus itself, and recent COVID activity has experts watching closely. As review co-author Eric Topol noted in a recent blog post, the current COVID incursion is ramping up quickly, with one modeler estimating 900,000 new infections per day in the U.S. alone.” • A million per day? That’s a lot. And “incursion” is a new word. I rather like it. At least it implies an enemy to be fought; one doesn’t “live with” incursions.
“Long COVID’s brain fog doesn’t lift for years” [Crain’s Chicago Business]. N = 100. Columbia. “Neurological symptoms can linger even two or three years following a COVID-19 infection for more than 60% of those who contract the disease, scientists at Northwestern Medicine and the School of Medicine at CES University and CES Clinic in Colombia have found.
Their study found the symptoms of brain fog — cognitive dysfunction — was experienced by 60% of patients and fatigue was experienced by 74%. The two symptoms, along with depression, most affected long COVID patient’s whether their symptoms were severe or more mild, Northwestern said in a press release.”
Elite Maleficence
CDC’s bogus wastewater map:
CDC Wastewater Map pic.twitter.com/kGk46t5GjA
— PACO (@PacoOnPause) August 13, 2024
Give whoever made the design decision for this Covid wastewater colorway a big bonus, because it’s a fine example of stochastic eugencis. The colors are going to lead X number of people to conclude Covid is no problem — “It’s blue!” — and X percent of those people will take no precautions, infect themselves or others, and X percent of them will sicken or die, adding another tranche to America’s quasi-geological layering of mortality. I hope the yoga on the lawn makes up for it all:
Morning yoga on the lawn at CDC’s Atlanta campus! 🧘💪 pic.twitter.com/LvwWQMB2Ze
— Mandy K. Cohen, MD, MPH (@CDCDirector) June 5, 2024
Upcoming HICPAC meeting:
CDC's committee meets on Aug 22 to discuss foundational guidelines on airborne infection control in nursing homes, hospitals & other health facilities. Will it update w/new science?
Many fear it won't, allowing employers to put profits before protection. https://t.co/Gz6GNE7qIG
— Amy Maxmen, PhD (@amymaxmen) August 13, 2024
WHO still pushing “Baggy Blues.” After four years:
Going home from work?
Take care and #WearAMask when in crowded transportation. Help keep yourself and everyone safe from COVID-19, flu and other respiratory illnesses. #StaySafe pic.twitter.com/SCCeKvVI37
— World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific (@WHOWPRO) August 14, 2024
Couldn’t they at least signal one respirator by using white?
Lambert here: Worth noting that national Emergency Room admissions are as high as they were in the first wave, in 2020.
Wastewater | ||
This week[1] CDC August 5: | Last Week[2] CDC July 22 (until next week): | |
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Variants [3] CDC August 3 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC August 3 | |
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Hospitalization | ||
★ New York[5] New York State, data August 13: | National [6] CDC July 20: | |
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Positivity | ||
National[7] Walgreens August 13: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic August 3: | |
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Travelers Data | ||
Positivity[9] CDC July 22: | Variants[10] CDC July 22: | |
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Deaths | ||
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC July 27: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC July 27: | |
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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. Keeps spreading.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular.
[4] (ER) Worth noting Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Going down. Doesn’t need to be a permanent thing, of course. (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). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.
[7] (Walgreens) Fiddling and diddling.
[8] (Cleveland) Jumping.
[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 range. 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) It’s rumored that there’s a new variant in China, XDV.1, but it’s not showing up here.
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
Inflation: “United States Consumer Price Index (CPII)” [Trading Economics]. “Consumer Price Index CPI in the United States increased to 314.54 points in July from 314.18 points in June of 2024.”
Inflation: “United States Core Inflation Rate” [Trading Economics]. “Consumer Price Index CPI in the United States increased to 314.54 points in July from 314.18 points in June of 2024.”
Retail: “Apartments, hockey rinks and Amazon warehouses: Macy’s closures will set off a wave of change at shopping malls” [CNBC]. “Macy’s decision to close nearly a third of its stores will spark change in malls and communities across the U.S. Some of those transformations may catch shoppers by surprise. The retailer said in late February that it plans to close about 150 of its namesake locations by early 2027. Macy’s has not yet revealed which stores it will shutter…. Yet the closures will be the latest catalyst that pressures malls to evolve to changing consumer tastes. Macy’s is shuttering stores as the growth of online shopping and demographic shifts mean some small towns or regions can no longer support a bustling shopping center. Macy’s closures will ultimately be a good thing for many malls and customers, said Chris Wimmer, senior director at Fitch Ratings who tracks real estate investment trusts. The department store’s exit will accelerate the inevitable demise of ‘low quality malls that really don’t need to exist anymore,’ Wimmer said. The closures will give the owners of healthier malls a chance to breathe new life and relevance into a shopping center.”
Retail: “Big Lots is closing hundreds of stores after warning it could go out of business” [CNN]. “Big Lots is closing more than 300 locations across the United States, or roughly a quarter of its stores, following an earlier warning that its future was in ‘substantial doubt’ amid ongoing financial troubles. The discount retailer previously said it planned to close as many as 40 stores during its most recent earnings report in June, when it recorded a 10% decrease in sales and a $205 million loss for the quarter because customers are cutting back on spending. In a recent regulatory filing, Big Lots said it would increase the number of closures to 315 stores, part of an updated loan agreement to secure its finances.”
Tech: “Hackers may have stolen the Social Security numbers of every American. Here’s how to protect yourself” [Los Angeles Times]. “According to a class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the hacking group USDoD claimed in April to have stolen personal records of 2.9 billion people from National Public Data, which offers personal information to employers, private investigators, staffing agencies and others doing background checks. The group offered in a forum for hackers to sell the data, which included records from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, for $3.5 million, a cybersecurity expert said in a post on X…. The information consists of about 2.7 billion records, each of which includes a person’s full name, address, date of birth, Social Security number and phone number, along with alternate names and birth dates, Felice claimed.” And this: “Oddly enough, [new] accounts are especially vulnerable to identity thieves if you haven’t signed up for online access to them, Murray said — that’s because it’s easier for thieves to create a login and password while pretending to be you than it is for them to crack your existing login and password.” • Onward to digital currency!
Tech: “Entangled Photons Maintained under New York Streets” [Physics]. “Large-scale networks that distribute information among quantum processors or that use quantum encryption for the security of a large number of systems will require many pairs of quantum mechanically entangled photons per second. Sending these photons reliably through existing commercial fiber-optic communication lines is a challenge, given the fragility of entanglement. Now researchers have sent 20,000 such photons per second down a 34-km-long section of a New York fiber-optic network with a fidelity of 99% [1]. They sent these photons continuously for two weeks without the frequent recalibrations needed in previous systems with lower photon rates. The researchers say that their results are an important step toward the commercialization of quantum networks…. A team led by Mehdi Namazi, cofounder of New York-based start-up Qunnect, set out to produce a high-throughput, high-fidelity system using polarization entanglement. Qunnect’s GothamQ test bed is a 34-km loop of leased commercial fiber buried beneath the streets of New York City. Like any commercial fiber-optic network, GothamQ had sources of stress on the fibers that were impossible to identify, let alone isolate and mitigate. So the researchers had to devise a way to compensate for them.” • New York because New York is a financial center? “Photon arbitrage”?
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 26 Exreme Fear (previous close: 24 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 19 (Extreme Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Aug 14 at 3:14:22 PM ET.
Photo Book
“In a Tribute to Ever-Changing Rural America, Brendon Burton Collects a Decade of Photographs in ‘Epitaph'” [This is Colossal]. “From the wheat fields of the northern Great Plains to misty days in the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, Brendon Burton (previously) captures a side of America many of us rarely have the opportunity to explore in depth. Despite the vast square mileage of the nation’s rural areas, hundreds of counties see declining numbers of residents each year.” • All the photos are great, but I like this one the best because I had to look twice to see our enormous impact on the land:
“The Curse of Knowledge” [Ness Labs]. “It’s a cognitive bias that occurs when someone incorrectly assumes that others have enough background to understand…. One of the most famous illustrations of the curse of knowledge is a 1990 experiment which was conducted at Stanford by a graduate student named Elizabeth Newton. In this study, she asked a group of participants to ‘tap out’ famous songs with their fingers, while another group tried to name the melodies. When the ‘tappers’ were asked to predict how many of the songs would be recognised by the listeners, they would always overestimate. The ‘tappers’ were so familiar with what they were tapping, they assumed listeners would easily recognize the melody. These findings have interesting implications. For example, research suggests that sales people who are better informed about their product may be at a disadvantage compared to less-informed sales people. This is because the better-informed sales people fail to adjust their pitch to the level of knowledge of their prospects. Since the knowledge gap is smaller, lesser-informed sales people also find it easier to align on a pricing that both parties deem acceptable.” • Hmm.
Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From Alpha Blob:
Alpha Blob writes: “Pitcher plant from Maine.”
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On the same day, all major media outlets got the Fax, and all gushed how Kamala is running a “campaign of Joy”. So, new lyrics for the wonderful Blind Faith song, “Sea of Joy” (live performance link below)
Following the shadows in the skies
Not aware they’re seeing a disguise
And they’re feeling close to how the race is run
Ready to cast votes, to anoint
She of Joy
Media all raising her aloft
She’s cotton candy that they canonize
Putting blindfolds over children’s eyes
Who swoon in ecstasy as they hail
She of Joy
Policy will not be coming through
Handlers keep her history from view
“Vibes”, her only avenue
Oh, putting blindfolds over children’s eyes
Who swoon in ecstasy as they hail
She of Joy
She of Joy
She of Joy
Substance-free
She of Joy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOZ5VcQIiFc
‘Joy of Arc’
Got a match?
They have 83 days to make it seem as if the empress is wearing new clothes-the latest fashions.
No need. If someone points out that she’s naked, the media will flower her with praise about her courage for being naked.
The Trump campaign seems to be run by idiots. They should have been running heavy oppo ads for the last 2 weeks. They left a vacuum, and the Harris campaign has filled it with beautiful fluff – and it’s working.
The US Presidential election, now more than ever, fits the definition of a pseudo-event.
‘Gluten-free’
I think I will start calling Harris “Serena Joy.” Serena Joy and Herr Stamer …
“The Future Belongs to Us?”
Another perennial favourite from that Meme Fest: “Money Makes the World Go Boom!”
We open with the Interlocutor of the Tik Tok App cavorting about with a big dollar sign.
Hilarity, and a little radioactive fallout, ensues.
Wow, a pitcher plantidote in its natural Maine habitat. Somehow I’ve always been fascinated by the notion of carnivorous plants.
https://www.carnivorousplants.org/cp/carnivory/what
https://www.thespruce.com/carnivorous-plant-varieties-4159595
Taken from my kayak while passing through a boggy area. Luckily I made it out alive ;)
That one was taken near my house and it was the only one I saw. But if anyone is in Maine and wants to see some carnivorous plants, I highly recommend the bogwalk near Orono – https://umaine.edu/oronobogwalk/ That place is full of pitcher plants – can’t miss them – and a great way to spend the afternoon.
I’ve seen them disappear in recent years from the bogs and wetlands of the northern Adirondacks. I always took them as a definitive marker that you were in the North.
When the due date for accessing my Social Security annuity was approaching, went to the SS office in Visalia and they arranged to have a SS agent call me on a given day a month hence, and when she called, got some very difficult questions that I think only I could have answered, and thankfully she didn’t ask who the catcher was on my 1973 little league team, I might’ve been out the money.
You get the idea that SS fraud is really common, one of the Dartful Codgers waited until he was 65 to get the money, and when he inquired with SS, they told him he’d been getting it since he was 62, that is somebody else impersonating him.
“… somebody else impersonating him.”
That’s what you get for outsourcing much of the verification process for a supposedly Public program.
(Social Security uses the major identity verification private company, ID.me to do just that, to ‘verify’ your identity online. That should be a hacker’s dream.)
I forgot to add, ID.me.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID.me#:~:text=ID.me%20is%20an%20American%20online%20identity%20network%20company,retailers.%20The%20company%20is%20based%20in%20McLean%2C%20Virginia.
It says that ID.me is based in McLain, Virginia. What else is based there? Hmmm…..
Bidens Filthy Ceasefire Lies
(Melody from “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E07s5ZYygMg
Build more cemeteries
On a summer evening
And it sounds just like Genocide
Give ’em more weapons
Spread that killin’ feeling
Add confusion on the side
Feed the press
Hide the truth
Can we even get through one day without?
I’m just thinking out loud
Can we even get through one day without?
Another round of ceasefire lies!
Chorus:
Biden’s filthy ceasefire lies!
Biden’s filthy ceasefire lies!
Biden’s filthy ceasefire lies!
(Another round of genocide)
Cemeteries
More room they’ll be needin’
Maybe build some on the moon
Warpigs starve bellies
With that killin’ feeling
Blood washed away in June
Feed the press
Hide the truth
Can we even get through one day without?
Another round of ceasefire lies!
Biden’s filthy ceasefire lies!
Biden’s filthy ceasefire lies!
Biden’s filthy ceasefire lies!
Biden’s filthy ceasefire lies
I just want an end to, yet another round of, Bibi’s awful genocide
(Another round of genocide)
Biden’s filthy ceasefire lies!
Biden’s filthy ceasefire lies!
Biden’s filthy ceasefire lies
These criminals must think we’re high!
Dumb youtube question for the commentariat. I used to be able to go the the homepage of the channel I want and see all the most recent videos listed, organized from newest to oldest. In the last week or two though, something is different. I’ve noticed on Napolitano’s and Nima’s channels that now when I go to their channel homepage, I can’t find the most recent videos listed. For example, right now Nima’s channel is listing a Scott Ritter video from 3 days ago as the most recent. But if I go to the youtube homepage, it will recommend today’s new videos from both of those channels to me, even though I can’t find them listed on the channels’ own homepages. I do not have a youtube login.
Is this a function of me not having a login? Something to do with how the channels choose to organize their homepages? Crapification of the youtube algorithm? Something else? As far as I can tell, I’m not doing anything differently myself, but getting different results than before.
Check out the “Live” pages on DW and JF. They post the live recordings there and that is what you are seeing in the recommendations. Those are the pages I bookmark.
Aha! I hadn’t clicked that tab before. Everything is there now when I do, thank you!
It’s up to the channel owner how they organize their homepage. It’s not a you thing.
Masking at markets and other public indoor venues making a comeback in my island town off the coast of Oakland, CA. At my doctor’s office today patients and staff all masked but almost exclusively with baggy blues. My tried, true, and trusty Elipse P-100 gets second looks. Mask envy, perhaps?
re: T’s suit jacket shoulder pads.
Oh, fer gawd’s sake. Mens’ suit jackets have always, at least since the 1940’s had shoulder pads to square the upper body line. You can go at T for a lot of reasons, but going at him for a sartorial dress that every man has worn in suits for the last 80 years? no words. Well, one word: “numbskull.” /heh
adding: you should’a seen the shoulder pads that were out-to-there in women’s dress business suits back in the 1980’s when women were expected to dress like jr. men when employed in non-traditional (for women) jobs like law and engineering and architecture. / oy
Yes.
Any rerun of LA Law demonstrates this perfectly.
Suit fitters will also tell you that many men have one shoulder higher than the other, so differential padding is part of the alteration equation.
A kid wearing a backpack slung over one shoulder is on the early route to that.
> Oh, fer gawd’s sake. Mens’ suit jackets have always
Today, we have “slim fit.” Now, not so much.
Maybe showing my age, but today’s “slim fit” mens’ style looks to me like hand-me-down clothing that doesn’t fit well. I suppose the sellers of the “slim fit” style save money on material costs. More profits. / heh
adding: our Tv network area has some young men, weather guys who wear the “slim fit” style. They are very slim, obviously. They also have suits that fit them properly through the shoulders. A square shoulder line.
I was spared the slim fit suit nonsense, having undergone that retiree wardrobe shift after years of casual office attire. The slim suits seemed like a gimmick to get men to overspend and become slaves to fickle trends.
I have to wonder if this dumb criticism is because people rarely dress up anymore. Perhaps the original tweeter has never worn a suit jacket.
That was my thought, too.
I have to share this one from Gothamist. Felony assaults rising in NYC even as other violent crime drops, report finds. Hmmmm, the lede, As most violent crime rates continue to drop in New York City, a new report shows that serious assaults are on the rise — and researchers behind the findings aren’t exactly sure why. Mysterious. The first sentence, The report, which was compiled from NYPD data by the nonprofit Vital City, shows a persistent increase in felony assaults citywide since 2020.
Covid is so pointedly ignored that the article begins to read like a Monty Python skit. The lass para, Glazer said more research needs to be done to bring crime in the city back to pre-pandemic levels.
“I think it is worth a deeper dive into where these incidents occur, what time they occur,” she said. “How different is that from past years?” heh heh heh
RE: Fortune “Long COVID is a $1 trillion problem with no cure. Experts plead for governments to wake up”
“As review co-author Eric Topol noted in a recent blog post, the current COVID incursion is ramping up quickly, with one modeler estimating 900,000 new infections per day in the U.S. alone.”
Hoerger’s model puts the US at 1.3 million per day/
https://x.com/michael_hoerger/status/1822859755687149679
What a stupid, stupid timeline.
I don’t think that, given that we don’t really do any testing at this point, certainly not in any systematic way, that any model is anything more than a rough estimate. I think both 1 million and 1.3 million are “in the ballpark” and that’s all we can ask for.
I haven’t had a chance to read through Hoerger’s model, which he does document, nor have I seen a critique of it. However, CDC’s model’s of transmission have been quite bad. I followed one quite religiously for some time, then pounced when it turned out to be grossly wrong.
“Neoliberal capitalism’ has contributed to the rise of fascism, says Nobel laureate” [ABC Australia].
“‘When you understand economic freedom as freedom to act, it immediately reframes many of the central issues surrounding economic policy and freedom,’ he says.”
People that free may actually try to hold authorities accountable for mistakes. They can’t have that.
Everytime I hear about the US and associates about to make some big mistake or catastrophic mistake, I think the warnings do no good. As long as those actually responsible will not be held accountable, catastrophe upon catastrophe can pile up as far as the establishment is concerned
The nesslabs article made me laugh. It’s got to the point whereby how many people think they can publish some amazing seeming nothingburger?
My response is always the same: Yatchew, A. & Griliches Z.. 1985. “Specification Error in Probit Models.” Review of Economics and Statistics 67 (1): 134–9.
People have different variances in how they respond to discrete tasks (like tapping a tune or interpreting the taps). People who “know” the song will tap more consistently and over-estimate how many taps are needed to recognise it, unless they KNOW the unseen person is a moron. This has been known since the late 1980s – look up Louviere, Woodworth, McFadden (who got a “pseudo” Nobel for utilising it but he got the answer right so we can’t criticise him for it being a pseudo), Hensher and others from 1987 papers onwards.
TL;DR People who know more or are more cognitively “with it” are more consistent, with probabilities that skew towards the true ones; people without these skills skew towards 1/n where n is the number of options. So in pairwise choices the people with fewer skill (or in this case info as to the true song) go towards 50/50 on A/B compared to the experts (song tapper).
This. Is. Not. New. It LITERALLY caused the BART in SF to work from day 1 based on knowing how “sure” different people were. Siloisation in academia causes this rubbish to still be published in 2024, over 50 years later. Sheesh.
The (more insulting) TL;DR re discrete choice models: If you don’t understand the likelihood function (printed at the end of the chapter of logit/probit models of all reputable texts for Stata/SPSS/SAS/etc) then don’t publish such garbage. You just look silly. And I shouldn’t have to show my working for something that is THERE in the literature and textbooks and has been taught since the late 1980s.
I know NC publishes links to things they don’t agree with so this ain’t an attack on them. We are here to discuss. But I just provide the source links on why a study like this is wrong. It should make everyone instantly discount the source/journal in future.
Dude. What the heck is a “probit model”?
I just saw a useful heuristic, a way for people to avoid being stupid in an everyday interaction. Academia is big, and there’s plenty of background I don’t know.
Also, how did BART apply this principle? That sounds interesting!
Ah, look at all the undecided people
Ah, look at all the undecided people
Kamala Harris
Picks up the mantle in the oval office
Where the weeding out has been-lives in a dream
Waits at the window of opportunity
Wearing the face that she keeps in
A jar by the door-who is it for?
All the undecided people
Where do they all come from?
All the undecided people
Where do they all belong?
Donald Trump
Writing the words of a sermon
That no one will hеar-no one comes near
Look at him working
Darning his tweets in the night
When there’s nobody there-what does he care?
All the undecided people
Where do they all come from?
All the undecided people
Where do they all belong?
All the undecided people (All the undecided people)
All the undecided people (All the undecided people)
All the undecided people (All the undecided people)
Kamala Harris died in the polls and was
Buried along with her name-nobody came
Donald Trump
Wiping the dirt from his hands as
He walks from the grave no one was saved
All the undecided people all the undecided people
(Ah, look at all the undecided people)
(Ah, look at all the undecided people)
(Ah, look at all the undecided people)
(Ah, look at all the undecided people)
(Ah, look at all the undecided people)
(Ah, look at all the undecided people)
(Ah, look at all the undecided people)
(Ah, look at all the undecided people)
Eleanor Rigby, by the Beatles
Undecided people are weirdos. Just sayin’.
Maybe because they have not been given any choices that they like.
I can see it now. A poster of Harris and Trump facing off over lecterns with the caption: “We are the Hollow Memes.”
I still can’t figure out how AllSides figured out the Harris campaign was rewriting headlines. As our hosts point out frequently, story headlines and the stories themselves change. Did AllSides monitor these news stories or somehow audit editorial changes?
Having said that, rewriting headlines is 1000% consistent with all the “narrative” crappola we’ve been put through. Also consistent with how Walz’s staff finessed the language in his bio.
This is a legit marketing strategy but not for legit products like soap or canned goods. This is how you market when your product is not essential. Harris-Walz could be swapped out with Newsom-Whitmer and the only chatter would be how come he’s on top?
I’m getting a weird vibe that Harris-Walz might not make it through the convention. No clue how they would pull that off but folks who strategically slash their opponents’ Secret Service details are capable of pretty much anything.
> Did AllSides monitor these news stories or somehow audit editorial changes?
It wouldn’t be hard to detect initial examples if your head is in the news flow; and it wouldn’t be hard to track down the real headline with Internet Archive and like tools.
> This is how you market when your product is not essential.
That’s a good point, akin to my question: “Why do they lie when they don’t even have to?” Find a good headline, ffs!
Could this presage the Return of the Wicked Witch of the Mid West?
Maybe the only things Kamala is wearing at present are the Ruby Slippers. (How brave and progressive of Her!)
I have added orts and scraps. Slow news day, as we wait for the explosions:
I read this tweet just before the Minnesota primary. Without mentioning AIPAC it certainly makes it clear that someone was pumping anti-Omar money into the CD through out-of-state Republicans.
Her opponent Don Samuelson has been to the well too many times and had little to offer. At the same time, Royce White won the Republican primary for U.S. Senator and is way more entertaining than Samuelson. He’s running against Amy Klobuchar.
I probably should have voted but people get very indignant when you laugh out loud while casting your ballot.
I have seen the argument that neither Bush nor Bowman had strong ties to the party establishment; Bush because she “came out of left field” and Bowman because of the fire alarm incident. So AIPAC picked off the laggard members of the herd, as it were. But left those in the herd (Ilhan, AOC, Jayapal) alone.
Covid-19
Fomite transmission obsession in an airborne transmission world
The stuff of heads banging on desks indeed … on a flight with really bad WiFi … can someone check and tell me if the WHO tweet saying COVID is not airborne is still up? I suspect it is.
One interesting potential demographic shift is that of the young: there were quite a few stories that Biden was leading strongly among the old white people, while Trump was doing unexpectedly among the young nonwhites (while leading by a big margin among the less likely voters generally). Now, non-college whites probably make up lion’s share of the “less likely voters,” but I imagine not having Biden on the Dem ticket would have made the “young nonwhite” component of the Trump’s potential coalition much less tenable. It would be interesting to see if there’s anything informative on that dimension in the polls. Who’s leading or trailing in the big picture sense seems not particularly useful at this stage.