By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Bird Song of the Day
California Thrasher, California Botanic Garden (formerly Rancho Santa Ana BG), Los Angeles, California, United States. I wondered if reader TH had been to this garden, but at least according to a search on that location, no.
In Case You Might Miss…
In Case You Might Miss…
- Kennedy live briefing at 2:00PM ET.
- This week’s RCP polling averages (neck and neck).
- New Covid charts (no improvements)
- The toll of scientific lies.
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:
Good news for Trump in that last week’s deterioration seems to have been slowed, although we shall have to see if Kamala gets a convention “bounce.” Remember, however, that all the fluctuations — in fact, all the leads — are within the margin of error. If you read most of the press, you’d think Kamala has this race in the bag. It’s not so. Do note, however, Trump’s deterioration in North Carolina: +2.4 last week to +0.9 this week, when OG pollster Sabato moved it to “toss-up” status from “lean Republican.” No wonder Trump held a rally there this week. NOTE With Kennedy, it would seem, about to drop out, I started tracking the national percentage as “Top Battlegrounds,” where Trump’s shrinking lead is +0.1 this week (as opposed to “5-Way RCP Average, where Harris led by +1.1 last week).
“Democratic pollsters have a warning about Kamala Harris’ lead” [Politico]. “Here at the Democratic convention this week, some in the party’s professional class are trying to tamp down the exuberance. Officials with the top pro-Harris super PAC said their polling ‘is much less rosy’ than public surveys. Other Democratic pollsters noted that — even if their polling is right — Trump still maintains a lot of advantages…. There are plenty of warning signs hidden in the data: A poll commissioned by the Democratic messaging firm Navigator Research and unveiled during the convention showed Harris and Trump essentially tied across the swing-state map. And the candidate characteristics that are best correlated with voters’ preferences — whether a candidate is up to the job, has the right vision and is a strong leader — generally favored Trump in the survey. And then there’s the prospect of another polling error. Polls underestimated Trump in both 2020 and 2016…. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s post-2020 report found larger-than-expected numbers of low-propensity GOP voters turned out, giving Republican candidates an unforeseen boost.” • Probably not a lucky break, then, that Trump almost got whacked. That sort of thing people remember.
“Democrats Taste Victory in November. But Are They Too Confident?” [New York Times]. “By Thursday evening, the convention floor was buzzing as delegates milled about in the hour before programming kicked off on the final night. Nearly every walkway was mobbed, making moving through the floor laborious. But no one appeared bothered. Several delegates said they remained excited, but had also taken the sobering messages to heart.” In other words, an ideal environment for super-spreading — both of Covid and of groupthink. For example: “Andrew Ashiofu, 41, a delegate from Washington State, was confident. ‘Right from the Sunday when she announced, we’ve seen it,’ he said. ‘We’ve seen people all coming together, the unity across all people. We’ve seen it in the way she’s raising funds, people donating massively to her. We’ve seen it in the polls. We’ve seen it everywhere. We’re seeing it right now.’ ‘America,’ he predicted, “is united to make sure Kamala Harris wins in November.'” • Well… That’s not what the numbers say at all. In any case, “except for the weirdos” is implicit in “unity across all people” and “America is united.” Frankly, I find the possibility that Ashiofu actually believes what he’s saying more frightening than the idea that he’s lying or engaging in puffery.
“The Mysterious Case of the Undecided Vote” [John Halpin, The Liberal Patriot]. “In practice, the bulk of party spending in elections does not underwrite a finely tuned political radar capable of identifying and pursuing the small percentage of truly persuadable voters. Rather, it pays for a fire hose of information and attacks indiscriminately sprayed on various local and state electorates without much, if any, understanding of who is seeing their partisan materials, how they are interpreting competing bits of information, and what ultimately will move undecided Americans to either vote or make up their mind. Even when political ads and messages are targeted online—or on radio and television—there’s a great deal of wishful thinking that party messages and attacks actually reach intended audiences, and more importantly, influence those people on digital platforms or watching particular programs who have yet to decide how they will vote. American ingenuity has solved a lot of problems in the world and created amazing scientific and technological advancements to help all of humanity. Yet, somehow, we still can’t figure out undecided voters and how best to interact with them. It’s mostly a guess. Why? There’s one obvious reason for this lack of understanding, and one more empirical reason. First, voting is a private act and it’s really no one’s business how other people plan to vote in an election, if they plan to vote at all…. Second, extrapolating from these inexact methods, parties do have a pretty good understanding of what reluctant and undecided voters tend to look like demographically: they are generally younger with less formal education and income, they mostly don’t like or care about politics, and they hold idiosyncratic views on economic and social issues that don’t easily fit into traditional ideological and partisan models. But these analyses are still vague and don’t really give campaigns a concrete list of people or groups in specific areas to motivate and persuade. So, lacking precise information, parties end up just blasting out ads and emails and slapping together messages hoping the content is solid and persuasive—and that someone, somewhere who is hesitant about their voting intention actually pays attention.”
* * * Democrat National Convention Vignettes:
Kamala (D): Oopsie:
The sheriff featured by Democrats last night is same sheriff we recently sued over taking cash from private equity-owned telecom companies to eliminate the ability of children to visit their parents in jail, on the theory that families would spend more money on monopoly calls. https://t.co/888sdowib9
— Alec Karakatsanis (@equalityAlec) August 23, 2024
“Harris plants her flag in Chicago: The future is now” [Eugene Robinson, WaPo]. “It is quite possible that the next president of the United States will be a woman of color; a woman who is Black and South Asian; a woman who is the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India. A woman who graduated from a historically Black college, Howard University. A woman who belongs to Alpha Kappa Alpha, one of the “Divine Nine” historically Black sororities and fraternities. A woman who is part of an interracial marriage and the “Momala” in a blended family.” • Well….
On the bright side, it’s been interesting to watch Kamala’s personal journey of discovery in her various political campaigns: From Indian, to Black, to (quite recently) “Black, dammit. What are you, racist?” to Robinson’s “woman of color.” One sees the advantages of the semantic flexibility, of course.
Kamala (D): “The Speech of Kamala Harris’s Lifetime” [Susan Glasser, The New Yorker]. The lead: “The Chicks sang the national anthem.” • Ah, memories. “Dixie Chicks comments on George W. Bush“:
In March 2003, the American country band the Dixie Chicks publicly criticized President George W. Bush, triggering a backlash. At a concert in London during their Top of the World Tour, the lead singer, Natalie Maines, said the Dixie Chicks were ashamed Bush was from the same state as them, and that they did not support the imminent invasion of Iraq.
The Dixie Chicks were one of the most popular American country acts at the time. After the statement was reported by the British newspaper The Guardian, it triggered a backlash from American country listeners, who were mostly right-wing and supported the war. The Dixie Chicks were blacklisted by many country radio stations, received death threats and were criticized by other country musicians. Sales of their music and concert tickets declined and they lost corporate sponsorship. A few days later, Maines issued an apology, saying her remark had been disrespectful. She rescinded the apology in 2006, saying she felt Bush deserved no respect.
I can’t make search cough up any links, but in my recollection the Democrats were wholly behind Bush at that point, and few to none of them came to the DIxie Chicks’ defense (“The events were documented in the 2006 documentary Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing.[2] The television network NBC refused to air a commercial for the documentary, citing a policy against ads dealing with “public controversy”. The commercials were also declined by CW.”)
Fast forward to the present, when we’re all one big happy family!
Kamala (D): “DNC Day 4: Kamala’s Coronation” [New York Magazine]. A welcome dash of cold water: “The fourth and final night of the Democratic National Convention had its moments — Elizabeth Warren’s early remarks, the Central Park Five, adorable children from the extended Harris family, Gabby Giffords, and yes, at moments Kamala Harris herself in her acceptance speech. But it will be more remembered by what didn’t happen: there was no surprise appearance from Beyonce or Taylor Swift, despite rumors and expectations there would be. There was not even a Mitt Romney or a George W. Bush or another unexpected Republican luminary, despite rumors there would be, rumors that the Harris campaign could have extinguished but chose not to. Instead, bizarrely, there were prime time addresses from dinosaurs like Leon Panetta, and almost proudly anti-charisma politicians like Roy Cooper, the governor of North Carolina, and Arizona senator Mark Kelly.”
Kamala (D): “Harris offers ‘new way forward’ as she launches into dead heat contest against Trump” [Washington Times]. “”I am so happy now. It’s almost like weeping has endured through the night, but joy cometh in the morning and, in many ways, we see a new day dawning in America,” said Sen. Cory A. Booker of New Jersey. “Page being turned.'” • It’s a neat trick, presenting yourself as a fresh face after having been in office nearly four years. Then again, if you made virtually no positive impression, you can “serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views,” a trick the Democrats tried sixteen (long, long) years ago, with success (at least or them).
* * * Trump (R): “Trump, Georgia Gov. Kemp exchange praise after lengthy rift” [The Hill]. “Former President Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) seemingly tried Thursday to put their lengthy feud in the rearview mirror ahead of November’s election. Kemp went on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, a favorite program of the former president, and said the focus needed to be on putting Trump back in the White House. ‘We gotta win. We gotta win from the top of the ticket on down,’ Kemp said. ‘We need to send Donald Trump back to the White House. We need to retake the Senate. We need to hold the House.’ Trump posted on Truth Social shortly after Kemp’s appearance on Fox News to express his approval. ‘Thank you to #BrianKempGA for all of your help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important to the success of our Party and, most importantly, our Country,’ Trump posted. ‘I look forward to working with you, your team, and all of my friends in Georgia to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!'”
Trump (R): On his live blog for Kamala’s speech:
He’s spiraling. #DNC2024 pic.twitter.com/9WEXrkFi4L
— Eliza Orlins (@elizaorlins) August 23, 2024
Looks to me like these guys just slam a pejorative on a screen shot and send it out…
This is possibly the worst advance work I’ve ever seen
– staff wasn’t briefed and doesn’t know who he is
– staff declines to be seen on camera
– principal (JD) doesn’t know how or what to order
– dead silence between stilted questions
– no supporters included for filler https://t.co/Fp1qb2QxYg— Conor Rogers (@conorjrogers) August 22, 2024
Yikes!
Kennedy (I): “WATCH LIVE: RFK Jr. holds briefing on his presidential campaign after withdrawal from Arizona ballot” [PBS]. “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will hold a news briefing on Friday, a day after he withdrew from the ballot in Arizona, as Donald Trump is set to appear only a few miles away in the Phoenix area. Fueling speculation that Kennedy could drop his independent presidential bid and endorse the Republican nominee. Trump, campaigning Thursday in southern Arizona at the U.S.-Mexico border, said that ‘no plans have been made’ for Kennedy to appear with him on Friday. But he noted they would be in the same city at the same time.”
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!
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 20: | Last Week[2] CDC (until next week): | |
| ||
| Variants★ [3] CDC August 17 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC August 10 | |
|
|
|
| Hospitalization | ||
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data August 22: | National [6] CDC July 27: | |
|
|
|
|
| Positivity | ||
| National[7] Walgreens August 20: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic August 17: | |
|
|
|
| Travelers Data | ||
| Positivity[9] CDC July 29: | Variants[10] CDC July 29: | |
|
 |
|
| Deaths | ||
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC August 10: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC August 10: | |
|
 |
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. XDV.1 flat.
[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.)
Lambert here: Since things are bad out on the West Coast, I went looking for California hospitalization data to compare with New York’s, and found this: “Due to changes in reporting requirements for hospitals, CDPH is no longer including hospitalization data on the CDPH dashboard. CDPH remains committed to monitoring the severe outcomes of COVID-19 and influenza, including the impact on hospitals. CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) will remain open to accept data, and CDC and CDPH strongly encourage all facilities to continue reporting.” Thanks, Mandy!
[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) The new variant in China, XDV.1, is not showing up here.
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
There are no official statistics of interest today.
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 51 Neutral (previous close: 47 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 35 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Aug 23 at 1:05:41 PM ET.
“How Deep Can Humans Really Go?” (press release) [McGill University]. “Freediving is an extreme sport in which the freediver (FD) descends and returns using a single breath…. How is it that organisms made to live on dry land are able to descend 214 meters with one breath?… There are several critical physiological responses that are theorized to permit FDs to reach these impressive depths. The first is the mammalian diving reflex. This is an autonomic reflex found in diving mammals that activates a series of responses that reduce O2 consumption following the cessation of breathing, known as apnea. Another critical mechanism is a centralized shift of blood known as the thoracic blood shift (TBS) in which there is movement of blood from the extremities of the body toward the central thoracic cavity. This increase in central blood volume allows for the reduction of TLC past the RV and prevents lung squeeze as the blood occupies the space of the shrunken lungs. Finally, the frog breathing technique permits FD to breathe past their TLC. During frog-breathing, the diver takes gulps air into their lungs after having already filled them. This is thought to increase the oxygen content in their lungs and prolong their time underwater. But as impressive as the physical adaptations of the human body are under these conditions, the mental adaptation might be even more astonishing. FDs have to learn to go against one of the most basic human urges, the urge to breathe. … Every time physiologists believe they have found the absolute limit of free diving, they are disproved by the newest world record. This begs the question – can we find the limit to freediving? Currently, it is believed that maximal diving depth is not restricted by breath-hold time, but rather by the degree of hypoxemia, that is lowest blood oxygen saturation, that can be withstood upon ascent. ”
Photo Book
“No one’s ready for this” [The Verge]. “In explosion from the side of an old brick building. A crashed bicycle in a city intersection. A cockroach in a box of takeout. It took less than 10 seconds to create each of these images with the Reimagine tool in the Pixel 9’s Magic Editor. They are crisp. They are in full color. They are high-fidelity. There is no suspicious background blur, no tell-tale sixth finger. These photographs are extraordinarily convincing, and they are all extremely fucking fake. Anyone who buys a Pixel 9 — the latest model of Google’s flagship phone, available starting this week — will have access to the easiest, breeziest user interface for top-tier lies, built right into their mobile device. This is all but certain to become the norm, with similar features already available on competing devices and rolling out on others in the near future. When a smartphone ‘just works,’ it’s usually a good thing; here, it’s the entire problem in the first place…. [I]t would be disingenuous to say that photographs have never been considered reliable evidence. Everyone who is reading this article in 2024 grew up in an era where a photograph was, by default, a representation of the truth. A staged scene with movie effects, a digital photo manipulation, or more recently, a deepfake — these were potential deceptions to take into account, but they were outliers in the realm of possibility. It took specialized knowledge and specialized tools to sabotage the intuitive trust in a photograph. Fake was the exception, not the rule. If I say Tiananmen Square, you will, most likely, envision the same photograph I do. This also goes for Abu Ghraib or napalm girl. These images have defined wars and revolutions; they have encapsulated truth to a degree that is impossible to fully express. There was no reason to express why these photos matter, why they are so pivotal, why we put so much value in them. Our trust in photography was so deep that when we spent time discussing veracity in images, it was more important to belabor the point that it was possible for photographs to be fake, sometimes. This is all about to flip — the default assumption about a photo is about to become that it’s faked, because creating realistic and believable fake photos is now trivial to do.” • Parodoxically (?), that might create a new market for the authentic….
“The staggering death toll of scientific lies” [Vox]. “[Don] Poldermans was a prolific medical researcher at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, where he analyzed the standards of care for cardiac surgery, publishing a series of definitive studies from 1999 until the early 2010s. One crucial question he studied: Should you give patients a beta blocker, which lowers blood pressure, before certain heart surgeries? Poldermans’s research said yes. European medical guidelines (and to a lesser extent US guidelines) recommended it accordingly. The problem? Poldermans’s data was reportedly fake…. Tens of millions of heart surgeries were conducted across the US and Europe during the years from 2009 to 2013 when those misguided guidelines were in place. One provocative analysis from cardiologists Graham Cole and Darrel Francis estimated that there were 800,000 deaths compared to if the best practices had been established five years sooner. While that exact number is hotly contested, a 27 percent increase in mortality for a common procedure for years on end can add up to an extraordinary death toll.” • It would really be nice to find a system in our society that wasn’t stacking up the bodies one way or another.
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 Desert Dog:
Desert Dog writes: “It’s been a rather devastating spring here in Easter Montana. First we had a late season Arctic freeze the almost killed the elm trees, but left a few branches with some leaves on some trees, others not so lucky. Then we had a major wind strom that blew through knocking down a lot of trees as well as tons of branches. The town got its act together and the citizens all went out and gathered limbs and piled them in trucks and trailers and headed to the dump with them. Lots of these half dead trees are being cut down and the fallen ones will be removed, hopefully made into firewood.” Maybe desert pines are dessicated and make better firewood than Maine pines do.
Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. Material here is Lambert’s, and does not express the views of the Naked Capitalism site. If you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for three or four days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:
Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated:
If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!
53 comments
Comments are closed.
Adding this to the mix:
This COVID Mutation Could Explain Your Brain Fog
Scientists have discovered a mutation in SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, that plays a key role in its ability to infect the central nervous system. The findings may help scientists understand its neurological symptoms and the mystery of “long COVID,” and they could one day even lead to specific treatments to protect and clear the virus from the brain.
https://scitechdaily.com/?p=406679
Has Kamala considered using “I’m Every Woman” as a campaign theme song?
In the spirit of joyful lethality I would nominate this one.
Or maybe this one would be more appropriate.
Watch out, Wuk might come up with lyrics using “I’m every womyn, mahn, them, it, was, were, there, could,” and other transitory verbs.
Can’t wait, though I won’t hold my breath underwater :-)
Kam Kam Kam Kam Kam Kam Kamala Kamala {smile{
Kam Kam Kam Kam Kam Kam Kamala Kamala {smile{
Kam Kam Kam Kam Kam Kam Kamala Kamala {smile{
Kam Kam Kam Kam Kam Kam Kamala Kamala {smile{
Kam Kam Kam Kam Kam Kam Kamala Kamala {smile{
Kam Kam Kam Kam Kam Kam Kamala Kamala {smile{
Kam Kam Kam Kam Kam Kam Kamala Kamala {smile{
Music to Watch Girls By, by the Bob Crewe Generation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwhflMf0Gyc
Brought back from a couple of weeks ago:
On the same day, all major media outlets got the Fax, and all hailed 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
re: the Pixel 9 synthetic imagery, an upside might be that there will in principle never be a shortage of superb anti-/planti-dotes.
—
re: the hard to influence undecided voters, I wonder whether promising to govern in their interest, and then actually governing in their interest to show that the promises can in the future be trusted, might work as a vote-attracting strategy.
========
gotta go — RFK appears to be about to say something at what appears to be an indoor spreading event.
> there will in principle never be a shortage of superb anti-/planti-dotes.
Not at all. It’s not only the image but the fact that an NC reader sent a real image, not slop that anyone could have created with the right softeare and the right prompt.
I have added orts and scraps, leaving much more on the cutting room floor, because I must hustle along and think of something interesting and useful to say about [genuflects] Kamala’s speech.
Except not, because RFK took all the air out of that ballooon!
I think we are at the tail end of an era where people believe they can go on the internet to interact with humans and learn things.
You propose an interesting question. We go on the Internet and learn things from non-humans? That can cover a quite wide range of subjects, and some objects too!
That was awkward watching JD Vance on ‘Candied Camera’.
Ya gotta wonder if the standard, scripted politician-eating-local-food spot isn’t so played and inauthentic that him walking in to surly employees and a bewildering menu is the new everyman-reality shot.
beat me to it,lol.
contra, as you say, the overly scripted and advance-teamed fakery we are usually fed.
NakedCapitalism got a shout out on the latest Multipolarity podcast, which I highly recommend if you don’t all already know of it.
https://www.multi-polarity.com/
Robert Kennedy Jr. is speaking at his press conference and he thanks his staff and volunteers. He says that Kamala Harris dropped out of the 2020 primary without a single vote and yet has been selected by the party to be the chosen candidate for 2024. By doing so they have abandoned democracy and embraced lawfare and manipulated the primary process, using the media to censor his campaign. CNN has now stopped carrying the speech or news conference live due to the message, electing instead to show a muted news conference with commentary by ‘pundits.’ MSNBC is not even pretending to cover it. He is not terminating his campaign but suspending it. He is not endorsing anyone but is removing his name from any battleground states where his presence on the ballot will change to outcome of the race between the duopoly. This caused CNN to momentarily broadcast the speech but when he started criticizing the war in Ukraine the immediately muted him again. “Rambling,” “troubled,” and “marginal” are being used to describe him rather than air the news. Now he is endorsing Trump.
The PBS link was live and is still running. Kudos to PBS (and unsurprisingly MSNBC and CNN are covering the story like the Democrat house organs they are).
P.S. From an abundance of caution, can somebody download the YouTube video when it is complete and let me know? I can well imagine what the Democrats would like to do to it.
I doubt there will be any analysis of his speech for 24 hours by the MSM, perhaps not until the Sundat ‘news’ shows. They always have to wait until they get the correct story or meme to parrot. Then it will be reinforced endlessly. Will his remarks be censored on YouTube or selectively edited on PBS news? I haven’t watched the Newshour in a decade but perhaps tonight I will. He was not sticking the the Amerika Uber Alles story at all. Not much of a honeymoon for Harris.
Hey Lambert, I just grabbed the 1:52:40 long video. Let me know if/how you’d like a copy.
Thanks so much, I will email you (I have a Yahoo account, FYI)
i downloaded it the moment i saw your post on it, so its safe(fwiw) on my hard drive.
and..” “Rambling,” “troubled,” and “marginal””
i cant count the number of times such words, and worse, have been used against me.
im certain im not the only one, either.
> “Rambling,” “troubled,” and “marginal””
Thanks. I was just thinking about how to reframe “rambling.” I’m not saying Trump is anything like John Coltrane, but these people would say that anything involving the slightest degree of improvisation is “rambling.”
thats really the meat of the nut, aint it?
afraid of things they cant control.
why do you think i use my mother as a rat in a maze representing those frelling people?
its almost 1=1 correlation.
historically.
might hafta wrap y’all in a poncho here in a minute…bars not built for easterly driving rain…
RFK: fascinating — suspending campaign and removing name from ballot in swing states. Will remain on the ballot in states where his presence would not influence the outcome.
I think he makes a persuasive argument against the Ds.
Speaks of the 2014 Maidan as a Western overthrow of democratically elected government. Notes western interference in the Spring 2022 peace negotiations. Ukraine a victim of the West. Economic weakening of Germany through the sanctions weakens Europe. We pushed Russia into arms of China. A first class calamity for US. KDH will be more of the same.
Pivots to DJT (with whom he announces what sounds kind of like an “alliance”). (Some remarks re: origin of the pandemic that I don’t understand). Prior discussion of “unity” between DJT/RFK; “team of rivals” – working where agree, disagreeing elsewhere. Two key issues: ending Ukraine war and ending chronic disease epidemic. References Means/Means/Carlson interview (may be this YT video). Talks about metabolic disorders, obesity, diabetes, neurological disorders. Problems of military recruitment due to health status of the young. Cites a shocking (if true) statistic: autism incidence among the young in CA: 1/22. Blames: (addictive) ultra-processed foods and ubiquitous environmental chemical contamination (mentions endocrine disruptors and early onset puberty).
I’ll sign off here. He’s talking about chronic disease and the entailed health burden and US financial burden. I can’t vouch for the details, but it’s refreshing to hear a national politician talking about public health and the ways that US industry and medical system don’t serve people’s well-being.
> I think he makes a persuasive argument against the Ds.
Persuasive, eloquent, and has the great merit of being true. Now we’re on to food, but I realize he has the platform, so he’s making the point.
Thanks, this is a good summary, that accords with my recollection.
Kennedy Suspends Campaign, Endorses Trump. Open thread at NC here.
Hoo boy.
Kennedy’s message (the context is the chronic disease epidemic among the young), “we must choose to love our kids more than we hate out enemies” , might shake up the campaign.
Just finished: a few sentences back he spoke a good line about what we could accomplish if we weren’t at each others’ throats.
This is fascinating and might (or maybe it’s just my hopium) be a very beneficial development.
What does not seem clear to many yet, but is starkly clear when considered, is that Democrats have become a party of war, a party of unremitting war. The Democratic convention speeches made this clear, even the black uniforms of Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris made this clear as the New York Times reported. *
Ronald Reagan has become a Democratic model, though Reagan was never ever as militaristic as Joe Biden has been. Reagan stopped Israeli bombings of Lebanon with a couple of tough phone calls. Reagan ended the Cold War, which Democrats have been intent on recreating even to the extent of emphasizing a Chinese nuclear “threat.” **
* https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/21/style/michelle-obama-dnc-fashion.html
August 21, 2024
Michelle Obama Suits the Moment
** https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/20/us/politics/biden-nuclear-china-russia.html
August 20, 2024
Biden Approved Secret Nuclear Strategy Refocusing on Chinese Threat
In a classified document approved in March, the president ordered U.S. forces to prepare for possible coordinated nuclear confrontations with Russia, China and North Korea.
Well, going by Lichtmans keys RFK has pretty much sealed the deal for Kamala. Barring a flash economic crash or more student protests this fall it’s pretty much in the bag for the Dems now that the 3rd party key is off the table.
> Lichtmans keys RFK
Good argument. Then again, Lichtman is not an oracle. Perhaps his keys had a lifespan, and the unprecedented volatility and systemic shifts this year have brought them to an end. Too much to study up on!
The minor party candidate most similar to the duopoly challenger has withdrawn and endorsed the challenger. The Greens/Stein are on the ballot in a number of swing states and, as of a check just now, do not appear to be irremediably off the ballot in any state (but perhaps the site I checked is wrong or out of date about the status of NY, which it represents as “in court”).
This seems to me to not be better for the incumbent party than having RFK, Jr. still on the ballot in the states that will decide the electoral college vote.
flyover blindness: I missed that Greens/Stein is definitively not on the ballot in two states: SD and OK.
It appears that they are “on” or “still seeking to be on” in every swing state.
I think that this situation, that the Left minor candidate is still there while the Right-ish minor candidate has withdrawn from the deciding states, must worsen the position of the incumbent party.
re: the mythical undecided voter
If you don’t recall that recent hack that exposed the SSNs and other information of basically every US citizen alive (and maybe dead), just remember that data brokers can guess with high confidence if you’re going to vote, and for which party, based on nothing more than educational attainment, income, and your address. Also, your prior voting history is a matter of public record.
My overactive CT imagination draws a connection between the rent algorithms and this data, inventing political redlining out of thin air. Hopefully that remains the stuff of thriller novels.
ive never understood how anyone could know how i voted….i get a paper ballot, go into a little booth like thing and grab a fat pencil and mark it…nobody sees my ballot after that, and theres no identifying markers.
this bewilderment may be an artifact of the fact that we still do the scan tron type paper ballots,out here… rather than the black box of mystery computer things so many of you have to endure.
Oh, they don’t have a record of your actual vote. Just the fact that you did. People first started noticing this when they received “voting report cards” in the mail from PACs around 2014-2016ish.
aye.
the glossy xmaspic of lil george and laura.
one only has so many dart boards.
I would make a snide comment about the “targetability” of pictures of certain prominent Politicos and your old 44-40 lever action, but I am on too many watchlists already.
I think that “party affiliation”, which in some states is declared as a condition of voting in closed primaries, may be public information.
This page indicates that party affiliation is public information.
This could be a way of guessing what one’s voting history is, on the assumption that people’s sense of party affiliation will tend to lead them to vote in the general election for the candidate of the party in whose primary they voted.
“How Deep Can Humans Really Go?” (press release) [McGill University].
There’s a Nordstream pipeline joke in here…somewhere…
I used to do some free-diving when younger for kicks. It’s strange and cold down there where the light turns blue…
I used to go out to the space between the two inner “reefs” off of Miami Beach and look for dead sea stars to bring ashore to sell to the Tourists. A blow up lilo float, mask, flippers and deep breathing exercises and down we go! Even though only forty or fifty feet down, that water is cold and …. vast. You really feel how insignificant you are in such a situation. (Not to mention all the critters living down there.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/arts/music/21pare.html
May 21, 2006
The Dixie Chicks: America Catches Up With Them
By JON PARELES
THE DIXIE CHICKS call it “the Incident”: the anti-Bush remark that Natalie Maines, their lead singer, made onstage in London in 2003. “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas,” said Ms. Maines, a Texan herself.
It led to a partisan firestorm, a radio boycott, death threats and, now, to an album that’s anything but repentant: “Taking the Long Way” (Open Wide/Monument/ Columbia). The Dixie Chicks — Ms. Maines, Emily Robison and Martie Maguire — were the top-selling country group of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. After country’s gatekeepers disowned them over politics, they decided to keep their politics and let country music fend for itself.
The Incident is very much at the center of “Taking the Long Way.” The album could have been “way safe and scared,” Ms. Maines said. “We could have pandered.” They didn’t. The new songs are filled with reactions, direct and oblique, to the Incident. There are no apologies.
“We had to make this album,” Ms. Maines said. “We could not have gotten past any of this without making this album. Even if nobody ever heard it.” …
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/10/arts/music/10chic.html
June 10, 2006
How the Dixie Chicks Hit the Charts Without Radio Support
By JEFF LEEDS
In February, eager programmers at the nation’s top country music stations got their first chance to hear new music from the Dixie Chicks in four years. But in a suite at the annual Country Radio Seminar in Nashville, brows soon furrowed over what would be the band’s first single, the angry “Not Ready to Make Nice,” which jabs at fans and programmers who ostracized the trio after its lead singer, Natalie Maines, disparaged President Bush in 2003, just before the start of the Iraq war.
“It took our breath away,” Julie Stevens, program director of KRTY-FM, a country station in San Jose, Calif., said of the song. Before hearing it, she said, she had figured “fans would forgive and forget as long as she shut up about it.” Now, she said, “that’s not going to happen.”
But surprise: even though the Dixie Chicks’ new album, “Taking the Long Way,” has been shunned by country and other mainstream stations, it has spent its first two weeks at the top of the Billboard chart…
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/13/arts/music/13gram.html
February 13, 2007
Grammy Sweep by Dixie Chicks Is Seen as a Vindication
By JEFF LEEDS
LOS ANGELES — The Dixie Chicks’ big win at the Grammy Awards on Sunday exposed ideological tensions between the music industry’s Nashville establishment and the broader, more diverse membership of the Recording Academy, which chooses the Grammy winners, according to voters and music executives interviewed afterward.
To some, the voting served not only as a referendum on President Bush’s handling of the Iraq war, but also on what was perceived as country music’s rejection — and radio’s censorship — of the trio…
RE: News of the Wired “The staggering death toll of scientific lies” [Vox].
“It would really be nice to find a system in our society that wasn’t stacking up the bodies one way or another.”
If you don’t like it in America, then why don’t you move to the Soviet Union?
I do hope that was a snark question.
I posted this in Links but here it is again:
It was really really awful.
What’s mind blowing is the level of energy from left-adjacent groups/silos in opposition to the Israeli genocide in Gaza, but not a peep about COVID and the ongoing Pandemic. If most Americans knew what they signed up for in repeat infection, I’d think that might move the needle much further towards policy change in that area than what’s happening Gaza, however disgusting, because that’s distant and isn’t affecting American citizens for the most part, but long term disability most assuredly is.
Not looking forward to the rest of my life going like this. Someday the bill is gonna come due.
who was behind the creation of the american police state! it started in the year of 1993.
——————————-
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/09/joe-biden-crime-bill-and-americans-short-memory/597547/
“It was a moment that may come back to haunt Joe Biden—perhaps as soon as tonight’s Democratic debate: In an earlier round this summer, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey wheeled on the former vice president, attacking his sponsorship of the 1994 federal crime bill with a roundhouse punch. “There are people right now in prison for life for drug offenses,” Booker said, “because you stood up and used that tough-on-crime phony rhetoric that got a lot of people elected but destroyed communities like mine.”It is true that the bill—which extended the death penalty to 60 new crimes, stiffened sentences, offered states strong financial incentives for building new prisons, and banned a range of assault weapons—helped lead to the wave of mass incarceration that’s resulted in the United States accounting for 25 percent of the world’s prison population.”
————————–
https://www.foxnews.com/us/bill-clinton-chicago-dnc-former-president-who-signed-1994-tough-on-crime-law-address-softened-party
Democrats’ 1994 crime law is back in the spotlight as its sponsors, President Biden and former President Clinton, take the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week.
Three decades ago, when Biden was a U.S. senator representing Delaware, he authored the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which Clinton signed into law with the intent to crack down on illegal drugs and violent crime.
Critics say that resulted in mass incarceration because it put life sentences on the table for nonviolent drug offenders and enforced the so-called “three-strike” rule for offenders. Biden has since called the legislation a “mistake.” Biden and Clinton “wanted us to put forth really tough crime policy, which makes sense, but it wasn’t fair policy,” Gianno Caldwell, Fox News political analyst and founder of the Caldwell Institute for Public Safety, told Fox News Digital. Caldwell’s 18-year-old brother, Christian, was fatally shot in a Chicago shooting in 2022. No suspects have been named in connection with his murder.
CNN COMMENTATOR BLASTS DEMOCRATS FOR HAVING BILL CLINTON AT DNC: ‘QUIT’ HIM, ‘FINALLY PLEASE!’
“You have many people go to jail for crack cocaine. And we’re not talking about just selling it. We’re talking about using it. And folks who use powder cocaine, or regular cocaine, they were let go. They weren’t put in the same set of circumstances as the mostly Black folks who were using crack cocaine at the time,” Caldwell explained. ” … Democrats didn’t care about that at all.
They just wanted to ensure that particular people were put in jail.”Alice Johnson, the woman Kim Kardashian helped free after Johnson was sentenced to life in prison for trafficking cocaine in Memphis in 1997, was directly impacted by the 1994 law. Former President Trump ultimately granted Johnson clemency in 2018.
“The Clintons and the Bidens have a history that they refuse to look in the mirror and see that they’ve caused a lot of the chaos that we’ve seen in our country today.”
——————————–
remember, crime is not down, its being under counted.
I watched a few clips of the DNC convention and it was inspiring to see thousands of those who have dedicated their lives to servicing the public pay down their immunity debt so joyfully.
I hope and pray that most of them will pay off that debt completely, without infecting too many innocents…
Bless their hearts.
im about 20 miles to the west-northwest of this:
https://www.foxsanantonio.com/news/local/firefighters-battling-3000-acre-wildfire-in-mason-county
started with some little wandering storms that bubbled up last evening…scanner has been frelling crazy!
still ongoing.
my eldest son, in fact, answered the call they put out for anyone with earthmoving equipment, and raced out of here at 9pm last night…to go clear firelanes, ahead of the fire.
ive heard jungledrum reports of ranchers first emptying their large tanks, loading them on trailers, and filling them up to feed the efforts…where the 2 tankers are staged.
Forest Service finally arrived this morning…with a bunch of pro-fire guys, as well as tanker planes dumping that red stuff(and doing their u-turns right over there)…as well as a chick flying around in a cesna(saw her, too) being a spotter…she dominated the scanner, today.
i went out after the storm had passed me(10pm) to scout for potential fire, and the western sky where the storms had gone* was lit up with lightnin such that i didnt need my headlight.(very dry ground=+ charge, wet air=-charge=>buncha lightnin.)
and i could see the red-orange glow from the biggest, “North Art Road Fire” well to my southeast.
9 fires directly from lightnin, and pretty much simultaneously, yesterday…and when the Art fire kicked back in, this mornin, it coincided with 5 or 6 more fires springing up elsewhere.
prolly 300+ firefighters from the state and surrounding counties working these things.
(* ive only seen, in 30 years, storms from the east if theyre associated with a hurricane making landfall at corpus christi, or points south…it just doesnt happen…but weve bot a bow-line of storms right now headed our way from the east again, today.)
Sending good thoughts to you and every one in the area, most particularly everyone fighting the fires in some manner.
i grok that we lost somebody.
on the fireline.
i only have the actual mason fire freq. out here, via laptop.
got all the state tac channels on scanner in the house.
i can just barely hear that from the bar.
theyre stuck in golfball hail at the moment….50 mph wind
will it douse the fire?
i frelling love my analog scanner(since 2004, cops sound like darth vader on lludes)