2:00PM Water Cooler 8/14/2024

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.

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In Case You Might Miss…

1. Kamala campaign’s tendency to lie
2. Trump’s suit.
3. Covid and the schools; nothing has been learned.
4. 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

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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).

* * *

The Campaign Trail:

Kamala:

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:

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:

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.”

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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

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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?

* * *

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

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):
Variants [3] CDC August 3	Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC August 3
Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data August 13:	National [6] CDC July 20:
Positivity
National[7] Walgreens August 13:	Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic August 3:
Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC July 22:	Variants[10] CDC July 22:
Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC July 27:	Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC July 27:

LEGEND

1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.

2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”

NOTES

[1] (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:

News of the Wired

“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.

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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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