Recent Items

2:00PM Water Cooler 8/30/2024

Posted on by

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Have a good Labor Day, everyone!

Bird Song of the Day

Catbirds are in the Mimidae species (!), like mockingbird and thrashers. Readers have said they like the mimicry, so hopefully MacCaulay Library has enough recordings to keep us all satisfied, at least for a time.

Black Catbird, Camino de grava entre el Corchito y Estero de Chicxulub, Progreso, Yucatán, Mexico.

* * *

In Case You Might Miss…

  1. New RCP averages show race neck-and-neck, plus new Covid charts show positivity improvement.
  2. Kamala and joy.
  3. Trump needs a campaign reset.
  4. Unions and worker power.

* * *

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:

The good news for Trump is that Kamala’s post-convention “bounce” seems to have been slight. The good news for Kamala is Trump’s continued deterioration in North Carolina, plus taking a slight lead in Pennsylvania. Remember, however, that all the fluctuations — in fact, all the leads, top to bottom — are within the margin of error.

* * *

Kamala (D): How it started:

Kamala (D): How it’s going:

Wowsers. Katrina vandenHeuvel.

Kamala (D): “READ: Harris and Walz’s exclusive joint interview with CNN” [CNN]. “By contrast, the former president has none of that. And so — one, I — I — I am so proud to have served as vice president to Joe Biden. And, two, I am so proud to be running with Tim Walz for president of the United States and to bring America what I believe the American people deserve, which is a new way forward, and turn the page on the last decade of what I believe has been contrary to where the spirit of our country really lies.” • One decade is 2014. Obama: 2016 – 2014 = 2; Trump 2020 – 2016 = 4; Biden: 2024 – 2020 = 4. 2 + 4 = 6, or 60% of ten. I too would love to turn the page on the last decade. Unfortunately, the Democrats have been in charge for 60% of it. And what’s with the “I — I — I”, especially on that topic? Don’t tell me Kamala grew up with a stutter too! Oh, and an eighteen minute interview, with a second interviewee present, is not at all impressive.

Kamala (D): “Donors Quietly Push Harris to Drop Tax on Ultrawealthy” [New York Times]. “The VCs for Kamala group — which includes Reid Hoffman, a founder of LinkedIn; Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures; Ron Conway, a well-known investor; and the billionaire Chris Sacca — surveyed its members about various public policy issues. Roughly 75 percent of respondents agreed with the statement “taxing unrealized capital gains will stifle innovation,” according to a document viewed by The New York Times. The survey otherwise showed support for Ms. Harris’s agenda….Some progressives have so far said they are unworried about signs that Ms. Harris is adopting more moderate rhetoric about economic issues, maintaining that she has been a key partner in crafting Mr. Biden’s agenda.” Commentary:

* * *

Trump (R): “Arlington National Cemetery worker was ‘pushed aside’ in Trump staff dispute but won’t seek charges” [Associated Press]. It was “assault,” now it’s “pushed aside.” So it goes. The details are in the story. Commentary:

Oh, I believe some things; it’s just that the process of ascertainment/discernment is far more laborious than it once was. And Bauer has the press dead to rights on WMDs, Steele, and Russian bot farms.

* * *

Trump (R): “Trump says he wants to make IVF treatments paid for by government or insurance companies if elected” [NBC News]. • This is actually clever, since it dings Walz while doing a good thing that will please suburban women. Useful in the debates, too. So, just like not taxing tips, Kamala will steal the idea in 10, 9, 8 counting….

Trump (R): “Trump tries to reset his campaign after brutal month” [Politico]. “Despite the endorsement and moments of discipline, the past weeks showed how Trump is most often guided by his own political instincts that are beyond the scope of what his advisers or allies can influence.” • Yes, it’s impossible for the campaign stuff to turn Trump into somebody he isn’t. Not that this is a strategy per se, but where I would begin is with Trump himself: Trump, love him or hate him, is somebody we feel that we know. He may be — often is — a [glassbowl]. But he’s a genuine [glassbowl]. Kamala, I would say, is different. It’s not that the public don’t know her, though it’s hard to see how this can be so, when she had three years in office as Biden’s heir apparently. It’s that Kamala herself does not know who she is. The “Indian”/”Black”/Mixed/Woman of Color vascillation is an example of this (which is why, in my view, Trump misplayed this aspect of her career by forcing it under the DEI rubric). All this would need to be translated into lietmotifs for Trump to incorporate into his riffing; the staff’s insistent tnat a teleprompter dominate him is wrong, personally and tactically.

* * *

Kennedy (I): Susie Wiles could do worse than bring whoever produced this ad from Shanahan onto the Trump campaign proper:

It codes young, “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is an extremely online trope, and TDS out-weirds “weird.”

* * *

“The ‘far-left agenda’ is exactly what most Americans wants” [Bernie Sanders, Guardian]. Fine use of anaphora. “When we talk about guaranteeing healthcare for all as a human right, we’re talking about the ability of every one of us, regardless of income, to go to a doctor when we’re sick and not go bankrupt when we come out of the hospital. We’re talking about the right to change jobs without fear of losing our healthcare. Does that really sound radical to you?” • But Kamala’s not advocating that, and if she were, she would’t deliver on it. The Democrats have form. More telling is what Sanders does not mention: Anti-trust. So long, Lina!

* * *

PA: “Pennsylvania may be a problem for Harris” [Silver Bulletin]. “If [Harris is] only tied in Pennsylvania now, during what should be one of her stronger polling periods, that implies being a slight underdog in November…. It’s possible that RFK’s dropout and endorsement of Trump is having more effect in Pennsylvania and the other Rust Belt states than elsewhere, which have older, whiter and more disaffected electorates. And as I said, it’s also possible that all of this is noise and/or that the model is overdoing the convention bounce adjustment. But while Tim Walz has had a strong rollout as Harris’s VP, I can’t help but wonder what her numbers would look like with Josh Shapiro instead.” • I still say no difference, and that Trump won Pennsylvania when Crooks tried to whack him.

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!

* * *

Transmission: H5N1

New H5N1 wastewater site:

Looks like good news, but before I did a happy dance, I’d want to lay a map of dairy herds against this map of sewer sytems.

“California, nation’s largest milk producer, discloses possible bird flu outbreaks in three dairy cow herds” [STAT]. “On Thursday, the California Department of Food and Agriculture announced it is investigating the possible introduction of H5N1 bird flu in cattle at three dairy farms in the Central Valley. If confirmed, they would be the first known cases in that state…. California, the nation’s largest milk producer, is home to roughly 1.7 million dairy cows. Nearly 90% of them live in the San Joaquin Valley, a vast stretch of fertile farmland that extends more than 250 miles from Stockton to Bakersfield. Dairy farms there tend to be big operations, separated from each other by significant distances, and for months farmers have been taking extra precautions like bleaching down cow-toting trailers to reduce cross-contamination. Workers there are usually dedicated to just one herd, unlike in Colorado and Michigan, where workers sometimes pick up shifts both at dairy farms and nearby poultry operations, creating additional biosecurity challenges. In both states, which have seen double-digit outbreaks, infections at dairy farms have spilled over to poultry sites, according to genetic analyses of the virus. But despite those measures, many have feared that with the lackluster national response to the outbreak, sooner or later H5N1 would come for California.” • Ah, bleach.

Maskstravaganza

At least they are wearing respirators (white) and not surgical masks (baggy blues):

So if the masks work as shields, why don’t they deserve a bullet point?

Science Is Popping

“Discovery of how blood clots harm brain and body in COVID-19 points to new therapy” (press release) [EurekAlert]. This is the press release for the important fibrin study in Nature we wrote about the other day. “In a study that reshapes what we know about COVID-19 and its most perplexing symptoms, scientists have discovered that the blood coagulation protein fibrin causes the unusual clotting and inflammation that have become hallmarks of the disease, while also suppressing the body’s ability to clear the virus. Importantly, the team also identified a new antibody therapy to combat all of these deleterious effects.” Key point: “[T]he study by Gladstone Institutes and collaborators overturns the prevailing theory that blood clotting is merely a consequence of inflammation in COVID-19. Through experiments in the lab and with mice, the researchers show that blood clotting is instead a primary effect, driving other problems—including toxic inflammation, impaired viral clearance, and neurological symptoms prevalent in those with COVID-19 and long COVID.”

* * *

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater
★ This week[1] CDC August 26: Last Week[2] CDC (until next week):

Variants★ [3] CDC August 31 Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC August 17

Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data August 29: National [6] CDC August 10:

Positivity
★ National[7] Walgreens August 27: ★ Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic August 24:

Travelers Data
★Positivity[9] CDC August 12: ★ Variants[10] CDC August 12:

Deaths
★ Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC August 24: ★ Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC August 24:

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) Again, an uptick, but the state as a whole is still down. Makes me wonder if there’s something happending at New York airports. Let’s watch carefully. (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) What the heck is LB.1?

[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.

[12] Deaths low, ED up.

Stats Watch

Inflation: “United States Core PCE Price Index Annual Change” [Trading Economics]. “Tha annual increase in the core PCE price index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge to measure underlying inflation, remained at 2.6% for a third straight month in July of 2024.”

Personal Income: “United States Personal Income” [Trading Economics]. “US personal income rose by 0.3% from the previous month to $24.015 trillion in July of 2024, up from a 0.2% increase in the previous month and above market forecasts of a 0.2% rise. Compensation of employees rose by 0.3%, same as the previous month, as wages and salaries grew further (0.3% vs 0.2% in June) and supplements to wages and salaries maintained the same growth rate as June at 0.3%.”

Manufactiuring: “United States Chicago PMI” [Trading Economics]. “The Chicago Business Barometer, also known as the Chicago PMI, rose to 46.1 in August 2024, up from 45.3 in the prior month and surpassing market estimates of 45.5. The latest reading still shows a significant decline in Chicago’s economic activity for the ninth consecutive month, although it remains comfortably above the year-to-date average of 42.9.”

Supply Chain: “The union representing dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas says they are ‘at an impasse’ with employers, and the real negotiations haven’t started yet. The deadlock is one sign of the high stakes in the dealing over a new labor contract that is taking place under threat of a strike at some of the biggest ports in the U.S.” [Wall Street Journal]. “[O]fficials at the International Longshoremen’s Association are due to meet next week in New Jersey to go over their wage demands and to set the table for a walkout that could begin Oct. 1. The ILA is pushing for a 77% increase for workers over six years, far more than the 32% increase the International Longshore and Warehouse Union won for its members at West Coast ports last year. Employers at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports are offering half that, according to a person familiar with the talks.”

* * *

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 60 Greed (previous close: 57 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 54 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Aug 30 at 1:37:12 PM ET.

Class Warfare

“Workers Deserve Real Power. Unions Aren’t the Best Way to Get It” [New York Times]. “If the goal is to place workers on a level playing field with employers so that they can advocate their own interests effectively and share fully in the prosperity they help to create, then getting more workers into those unions is not the only way. It’s not even the best way. A more effective strategy is to ensure a tight labor market by constraining who employers can hire — in particular, by making it harder to offshore production to other countries or bring workers from other countries into the United States. Employers fight against such constraint tooth and nail because it forces them to improve the quality of the jobs they offer, to retain workers and draw people off the sidelines to fill open positions, and to invest in boosting productivity. A recent analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis illustrates this effect. Firms lamenting labor shortages and hiring challenges for routine manual tasks tend to invest more and achieve larger productivity gains. Senator JD Vance has articulated the point well, warning that support for the free movement of labor across national borders ‘decimates the bargaining power of workers’ by offering employers less expensive alternatives, while constraining access to inexpensive labor is ‘a tech-forward argument. If you can’t constantly do the same things with cheaper and cheaper labor, your economy is forced to innovate.’ Nor is America’s existing union model, codified by the Depression-era National Labor Relations Act, the only form a vibrant labor movement might take. In most of Europe, for instance, unions operate at the industry level rather than having to fight for recognition company by company.”

News of the Wired

“The Secret Inside One Million Checkboxes” [EIEIO.games]. “On June 26th 2024, I launched a website called One Million Checkboxes (OMCB). It had one million global checkboxes on it – checking (or unchecking) a box changed it for everyone on the site, instantly. My expectations for the site were very low and very wrong. I thought hundreds of players would check thousands of boxes – instead, 500,000 players checked over 650,000,000 boxes in the two weeks that I kept the site online.” • I can’t really excerpt the story. But the kids are alright.

“The Bug in the Computer Bug Story” [JSTOR]. Everybody knows the story, so picking up: “The real bug in this narrative, as Shapiro points out, is that ‘bug’ in this sense actually goes back to the late nineteenth century. The Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary’s fourth definition of the noun ‘bug’ reads ‘a defect or fault in a machine, plan, or the like.’ The OED cites the March 11, 1889, Pall Mall Gazette as a source: ‘Mr [Thomas] Edison… had been up the two previous nights discovering a ‘bug’ in his phonograph—an expression for solving a difficulty, and implying that some imaginary insect had secreted itself inside and is causing all the trouble.’ And then there’s also a letter, written by Edison in 1878, in which he refers to “‘Bugs’ as such little faults and difficulties are called.” By the publication of the 1934 Webster’s New International Dictionary, the third definition for the noun bug was: “a defect in an apparatus or its operation.’ Computer people adopted a term in use for more than half a century and brought it into the digital world. ”

* * *

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 AF:

AF writes: “Black Swallowtail caterpillar munching on parsley.”

* * *

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!

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

This entry was posted in Water Cooler on by .

About Lambert Strether

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

Subscribe to Post Comments
91 comments

  2. William Beyer

    Regarding, Wowsers. Katrina vandenHeuvel.

    Jeffrey St. Clair had a nice zinger at Counterpunch:

    + I don’t follow fashion protocols that closely, but is it even permissible to wear white while you do a genocide?

    2. John Anthony La Pietra

      When I saw the poster, the first thing I thought was that she was being a Thoroughly Modern Hillary — the new Goldwater Girl who gets to play with the flowers while she pushes the “most lethal” button.

  3. Pat

    Is Sixties nostalgia really a political winner?
    I know I am showing my age here but that Harris poster reminds of the Flower Power/Summer of Love looks of my childhood. And not for nothing “San Francisco, wear some flowers in your hair” has not endured as well as “Something’s happening here…”
    Even worse I had a sudden image of Harris exiting the Partridge Family bus.

    Don’t even get me started on “Vote for Joy”. Was this conceived by the same brain trust that gave us “I’m your abuela”?

      1. ChrisFromGA

        I still say Trump should buy the rights to that commercial. Reruns can be big money.

        Or modify it a bit, have Kamala giggling in the background as the girl picks the daisy.

        1. Pat

          That might be fun. Only because it would be interesting to watch team anyone but Trump tie themselves in knots calling him on the hypocrisy while trying to wrap themselves in twenty layers of duct tape to ignore its accuracy.
          Too bad they are both terrible on wars and war mongering even if Trump wants one less.

        2. Randall Flagg

          No need to go international, yet. Start with the half mushroom cloud from the East Palestine train wreck, see how many feel abandoned by the Biden administration. Did Biden of Harris go there?
          Show the buses just dumping immigrants into the cities, show Mayor Eric Adams’s speech how the city can’t keep doing this.that took all of two seconds and The list is endless. Green new deal? Show the charging stations with the stolen cords. Lines increasing at the food banks. Incompetence? Show that footage of the jobs numbers being released and Gina Ramondo, who leads the effing agency that puts those numbers out, stating on CNBC that she has no idea about any of it. ( paraphrasing)
          Then start with all the footage of destroyed lives in Gaza, and Ukraine, destruction , rubble, leading to mushroom clouds for us all. Where are you going to hide? Look at your children at the kitchen table, or tucking them into bed, or your parents, or friends. this could be your last moments with them.
          Are these the people you want in charge? Sweet dreams.
          Make that Daisy commercial, and boy is that a good one, ( so good it was only shown once and pulled),look like it is a minor league after school special.

      2. John Anthony La Pietra

        Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up reading all the comments before adding my own. . . . (see just above)

    2. griffen

      Hoo boy. Vote for something, as long as it can’t be Trump again! Harris can certainly beat him in this election year; but can she really be capable to fool the broad populace that initiatives to drill, one example, Harris had once campaigned against in previous efforts ( state, national ) and now she is supportive instead?

      Tongue in cheek I suggest…of course people will accept it. She changed her mind(!). Drill baby drill, and more money for our wars. \sarc

      1. Buzz Meeks

        Being a life long Democrat idealist and a unrepentant New Dealer and seeing how Democratic party machines used to vote dead people, I am thinking of a twist and writing in Franklin Delano Roosevelt for president this year. For the record, have not considerd myself a democrat since the Clintons.

    3. Stephen V

      Sorry to be a Killjoy, but I was there, I inhaled and being “weird” was a good thing! So what’s up with the Flower Power psy-op?

      1. barefoot charley

        Co-opting. We’re all hippies now, it’s so groovy checking so many boxes for President! If she only had a brain . . .

    5. The Rev Kev

      Had the same thought. That this looked like it was out of the San Francisco of the ’60s with the Flower Children. But would that poster be effective? Those Flower Children would all be in their 70s now. If the Democrats are going for nostalgia, they have a limited field as far as their party is concerned. How many people are nostalgic for when Bill Clinton’s Democrats were running the country?

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > Those Flower Children would all be in their 70s now. If the Democrats are going for nostalgia, they have a limited field as far as their party is concerned.

        I think we should assume that the Harris campaign has embraced the idea that this is the stupidest timeline, with great vigor.

        Two theories of the election: (1) “100,000 votes in seven swing states” is (2) “vibes and memes everywhere for a national mandate.” Experientially and tempermentally, I am an adherent of theory (1). And I don’t see how vibes and memes can target states in a national election*. But there’s no doubt a case could be made for theory (2):

        What that poster does is vaguely connote “youth” and “novelty” to youth who may not even know what the 60s — 1968 was 56 years ago, so aply named — were. That’s the vibe. Although this is very stupid, perhaps the vibe is enough, especially given that nothing else is believable (per Bauer).

        A second vibe is that Kamala is “fresh” after the last ten years (which are old and stale, like Trump (and Biden, but never mind that)). In answer to which pedants like me do the math and point out that Democrats have been in power for 60% of the last ten years. However, to a twenty-something, that might not matter much, given that they experienced the Great Financial Crash and its aftermath in grade school.

        I don’t think a strategy of “vibes and memes everywhere for a national mandate” would work in a long campaign, but this is not a long campaign.

        NOTE * Granted, the Fetterman campaign eviscerated Oz on precisely that basis. I don’t see how that scales.

    6. Bugs

      It reminds me of the hollow pomo flower power of 90s rave flyers, filtered through one more layer of cynicism. Like using traumatized veterans of the GWOT to sway the FDA to legalize Ecstasy.

    7. Lambert Strether Post author

      > Don’t even get me started on “Vote for Joy”. Was this conceived by the same brain trust that gave us “I’m your abuela”?

      Probably not, since “mi abuela,” like the hot sauce in the purse, was a crude attempt at identity politics, whereas “joy” is a universal capability, if not evenly distibuted due to life circumstances. (I think a good deal of the “joy” the PMC is currently experiencing is the joy of sticking it to their enemies good and hard; the joy of battle).

  4. flora

    re: “Workers Deserve Real Power. Unions Aren’t the Best Way to Get It” [New York Times]. “If the goal is to place workers on a level playing field with employers so that they can advocate their own interests effectively and share fully in the prosperity they help to create, then getting more workers into those unions is not the only way. It’s not even the best way. …”

    riiight. Thanks, NYT. Reminds me of this FDR response to the GOP about Social Security. utube. 1+ minute. / ;)

    FDR on Social Security

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqKijm15ZCA

    (I miss the old New Deal Dem party. sigh….)

    1. aleph_0

      Incredible video. What a spectacular argument. Thanks. As true today as it was then.

      As for the NY Times article, I can’t find the screenshot, but was immediately reminded of the Onion headline (misremembered): Guy Who Hates Your Cause Has Advice About Your Tactics.

    2. Ranger Rick

      Unions as we envisage them in the US at the moment are sort of the republican version. The workers elect a representative; the representative does the negotiating. The result gets put to a vote. The actual agreement with the compromises included is presented as a sort of fait accompli to union members: you chose this but did not negotiate this. This is especially true for junior members, which both unions and their companies love to pick on with multiple-tier systems designed to split the workforce into haves and have-nots. In delegating away their negotiating power, workers also delegated away their strike-calling power. In so doing, a union employee ends up having just as much power as a non-union employee.

      The New York Times thinks there’s a better way? I’d love to see one that doesn’t end up with the workers getting taken advantage of given the massive power imbalance inherent in the employer/employee relationship. Claiming workers will be replaced by robots and machine learning — sorry, ‘innovation’ — when it’s possible to do so (and that this is a good thing for labor) is not going to endear them to labor activists. They keep bumping up against UBI without intending to.

    3. NYMutza

      The NY Times article makes a very valid point so don’t be so quick to dismiss it. Labor shortages are far more beneficial to workers than are unions. Unions can be co-opted and can be corrupted. Many are.

      1. flora

        Sure. See also the open southern border flooding the US with cheap, powerless labor increasing the labor supply. What’s the NYT’s take on that? / ;)

        1. The Rev Kev

          ‘Tis but a coincidence. Hmm. Can you imagine what would happen if the southern border was locked up tighter than a drum? No new cheap, exploitable workers to push down wages? No new easily swayed voters whether they are citizens or not? Which party would crack first and demand that the border be opened up again?

          1. marym

            “…easily swayed voters whether they are citizens or not?”

            Whatever one thinks of US immigration policy in other respects, in my opinion one of the most anti-working class accusations of election manipulation is the assumption without evidence of a willingness to commit criminal voter fraud by one of the most vulnerable segments of the working class (undocumented workers), and one of the most respectable groups of ordinary citizens (the workers and volunteers who administer the election processes).

            “Across 42 jurisdictions, election officials who oversaw the tabulation of 23.5 million votes in the 2016 general election referred only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting for further investigation or prosecution. In other words, improper noncitizen votes accounted for 0.0001 percent of the 2016 votes in those jurisdictions…In the ten counties with the largest populations of noncitizens in 2016, only one reported any instances of noncitizen voting, consisting of fewer than 10 votes…”
            https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/noncitizen-voting-missing-millions

            https://www.cato.org/blog/shedding-light-incidence-illegal-noncitizen-voting

          2. ashley

            people get all hung up on the “illegals” but in the process are ignorant of the legal working visas such as H1Bs or even ‘tourist’ J1s that are abused by the resort/entertainment/travel/hospitality industry. thats where the real bipartisan robbery of the US born working class actually lays when it comes to immigration concerns. temporary workers are cheaper and as an added bonus, dont unionize. that drives down wages and working conditions for the rest of us.

            and these immigrants/temporary workers arent bad people, i doubt most have any idea that theyre just pawns in global neoliberal capitalism where capital has more power than governments.

            1. The Rev Kev

              It’s not so much the illegals as the basics. When you have a country, it must be able to define its borders and be able to defend them. That is priority one. The next priority is being able to define who it’s people are which tends to revolve around the notion of citizenship. In the past that could mean a tiny minority or most of the adult population. Another priority is being able to examine any arrivals to that country to see if they are entitled to enter. Ellis Island anyone? Opening up the border to the south to hundreds of thousands and even millions of people without knowing who they are or how they are going to support themselves is just asking for trouble. We saw that when Germany let over a million people into their country several years ago to the US right now. If you are a corporation or middle class wanting cheap labour, then you are OK. If you are poor in America seeking to make a living, life got tougher.

      2. Lambert Strether Post author

        > Labor shortages are far more beneficial to workers than are unions.

        Unions are inherently about negotiating the terms of a fundamentally unequal, degrading. and materially disadvantageous (to workers) relationship, selling your labor power to survive.

        The Bearded One would say that the issue is not contractual bandaids on the wage-work cancer, but worke ownership and control over the means of production.

        For example, can anyone seriously argue that Boeing would be a worse company if it had the same ownership structure as Mondragon (worker cooperatives)? I grant your answer will differ according to your metric, but if your metric is planes falling out of the air or coming to bits, worker cooperatives could hardly be worse (and how’s that new CEO doing? He seems rather silent). Ditto Intel. Ditto Google. And so on.

      3. steppenwolf fetchit

        They didn’t get that way on their own. The anti-New Deal warriors right after FDR’s death worked very hard to make them co-optible and corruptible, including by widespread purging of socialist and socialist-minded labor leaders from union leadership cadres.

        It may also be possible to de-corruptify and de-co-optify unions which are currently corrupted and coopeted.

  6. Milton

    One decade is 2014. Obama: 2016 – 2014 = 2; Trump 2020 – 2016 = 4; Biden: 2024 – 2020 = 4. 2 + 4 = 6, or 60% of ten.

    It’s worse then that…

    cherry picking here but in the last 30 years, Dems have had the presidency for 50% longer than the GOP. 18 yrs vs 12 yrs. I didn’t want to look further into this but I’m sure they also held similar margins with regard the congressional control.

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > Kamala cackling

      I tend to read, not listen (more efficient).

      Does Kamala really “cackle,” or is this a talking point left over from the Clinton Era (when Hillary did indeed cackle (which mutated over into “cankles,” a sign of ill-health that, AFAIK, Kamala does not share).

    2. Eclair

      My take on the whole ‘joy’ thing is that it is a brilliant marketing move to counter the discomfort caused by Harris’ supposed propensity to laugh, a lot, at inappropriate moments. (I watched, a couple of weeks ago, a series of Sky News hatchet jobs on Harris, highlighting her laughs, as well as her, um, verbal contortions.)

      Hey, of course she’s laughing, because running for US President (having been appointed by The Donors, rather than the Electorate), is a great and glorious, fun-filled romp.

      Plus, it reflects the mass delusional psychosis that seems to have gripped the nation: Global Warming? Buy an EV! Genocide? Gotta defend yourself! Looming nuclear war? Amazon will deliver almost anything I can think of, to soothe my latent anxiety, in 24 hours! Life is fun! Feel the joy! Laugh with Kamala!

    3. ChiGal

      it doesn’t target the latest variants; the technology doesn’t allow for as rapid a turnaround

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > the technology doesn’t allow for as rapid a turnaround

        We were told that would be one advantage of mRNA; point versions, like software.

        Never happened.

        I am totally not a vax maven, but (a) I think Novavax will offer another layer of protection, regardless of the variant du mois, (b) it offers a difference choice of side effects, and (c) all other things being equal, I support rugged and proven technology over new and innovative technology. This view does not speak to the particular vaccine, but I am pleased to see killed virus solutions on sale so there is not an mRNA technical monopoly.

      2. Jorge

        Novavax’s previous Covid vaccine has a better record on generalizing to variants. This is why I’ve been waiting for this version.

        Also, a better record on vaccine injuries.

        Sorry, no cites.

  9. marym

    Re: “Trump says he wants to make IVF treatments paid for by government or insurance companies”

    Coverage (though not without copays, etc.): Military, VA, private insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, FEHB
    https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/4445/text

    Vice President Kamala Harris @VP
    Senate Republicans have done it again — they just blocked a bill that would protect access to IVF nationwide.
    6/13/2024
    https://x.com/VP/status/1801391481397330239

    (Not that Harris, or Democrats in general are any more likely than Trump to actually do this, though)

  10. CA

    Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, speaking today before a global security conference in Prague, is telling the audience that Europe needs to become “more nuclear.” How could such a mad thinker become an EC president? Of course, von der Leyen went along unasked to China with French President Macron to be sure that Macron was not about to be conciliatory to Xi Jinping.

    1. jsn

      She is the portrait of articulate rationalism compared to whom the same “electors” are putting up to run Our Democracy.

      1. CA

        She is the portrait of articulate rationalism compared…

        [ Important comment, however distressing. ]

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > Europe needs to become “more nuclear.”

      So. in addition to France, Germany? Poland?? Ukraine???

      Ursuala’s father, Ernst Albrecht:

      The state government under Ernst Albrecht used every opportunity to court former Nazis. In a 1978 speech, Deputy Premier Wilfried Hasselmann (CDU) greeted the Association of Knight’s Cross Recipients, a league of former Wehrmacht (Hitler’s army) officers and SS men, certifying that they had “shown courage and given an example to others”. Hasselmann declared he was “deeply impressed by the solidarity of your order. You have fulfilled your duty as soldiers in an exemplary manner. This will continue to be evident to a younger generation”.

      Albrecht is known for the decision to make the County of Lüchow-Dannenberg the state’s “nuclear district”; only a radioactive waste dump at Gorleben was realized, however.

  11. Mark Gisleson

    Since his town hall was just thirty minutes away from me I’m watching Trump and one thing is jumping out at me that I hadn’t picked up on before. Trump — at a very deep level — understands how to speak loosely on the stump. He makes claims that aren’t true but if you research him you learn that essentially he’s not wrong.

    Your critics are going to spend time to prove you wrong (hello Twitter!) so instead of focusing them on issues where some voters might not like his approach, Trump speaks loosely about issues where the facts are on his side if not in exactly the way he says. Critics waste time finding out Trump’s sort of right about something.

    It’s also a strategy that targets activists and others who help get out the Democrat vote. None of whom got to vote for Harris to head up the ticket. Gull those folks into googling Trump’s good issues and Harris’ bad issues and it will take the post-convention high right out of them.

    Taibbi and Kirn talked about media strategy in their weekly podcast and boiled it down to Harris trying to avoid the media while Trump’s side using every kind of media as much as possible and not caring about the fall out. Harris is trying to sneak across the finish line, Trump lets everyone know the circus is in town.

    Goling back to watching the townhall now. This is good stuff by which I mean I’m seeing bits and pieces of a winning strategy. Trump really knows how to work a large room.

        1. Ben Panga

          If you search “Luke Pulaski” in that transcript you’ll find Trump’s answer to an economic question

          -> Inflation is nuts, huh?
          -> [segue] “This was caused by their horrible energy wind”
          -> Drill baby drill
          -> You’ll have a beautiful home. That’s the American Dream.

          It’s not much, yet still more strategic sounding than anything from team brat.

    3. Lambert Strether Post author

      Thanks for this link.

      > Trump — at a very deep level — understands how to speak loosely on the stump. He makes claims that aren’t true but if you research him you learn that essentially he’s not wrong.

      Jazzy riffing, as I labeled it in 2016. What the staff needs to do is not not not not chain him to a teleprompter but provide him with better riffs (and Nicole Shanahan’s TDS ad would be fine starting point for that). His riffing is also Borscht-belt inspired, as I’ve been saying for years and Nooners recently picked up on. That codes old, a problem combatting a memes and vibes-based campaign that codes young.

      Speculating freely, and no doubt causing some Blue heads to explode, Trump is not without ideas and not without policy (much more so in 2016 than today, which I put down to becoming head of the Republican Party and having an actual campaign staff, both of which create drag, and perhaps too much drag for flight). Policy: Axe TPP (done). Policy: Reorient China trade policy (done). Policy: CARES Act (passed, radically decreases poverty until Biden rolls it back). Policy: OWS (executed, p*ssed away by Biden). Also, no proxy war with a nuclear power, and no genocide. That is not in any sense the record of a madman.

      Eisenhower was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in World War II and could write a mean memo (here; here). And yet as President, Eisenhower adopted a communications style of mumbling incoherence, for which the press (and academics like my family) pilloried him. It occurs to me that Trump may have done something similar: Speak to the press to generate outrage and clicks; speak to his base in terms that resonate with them (“take seriously and not literally”); years in TV and as a New York celebrity surely prepared him for this. However, this does not scale much beyond his base, and one might take the view that Trump’s current “slump” is a consequence of that limitation. In addition, Trump does not have, as Eisenhower in his memos shows he did, what we might call an “administrative” register, clear and concise, which the press and the PMC clearly regard as a Presidential prerequisite (as being order followers, they would).

      Again, thanks for the link. I missed a Trump townhall entirely. I do try to keep track, and to my mind this shows the totality of suppression currently deployed against Trump. Good practice for the debate, too (A/B testing). Say, have Kamala and her wingman* done a town hall yet?

      NOTE * If I were a winger doing snark, which I am not and am not, I would say “wingcuck.”

  12. ambrit

    “So if the masks work as shields, why don’t they deserve a bullet point?”
    Because masks, as a rule, are not impervious to bullets. (This expected in later stages of the Neo-liberal Eugenics Program.)
    “Show us your smile or suffer terminal effect Consumer! This is your only warning!”

  13. Ben Panga

    Re: the two posters

    Looking at the Obama one, would that much red be used today? I think it might be seen as communist-coded too easily.

    The Kamala one is ugly and soulless. Like an AI album cover. It also reminds me (a gen-Xer) of the early 90s nostalgia for flower power style.

    I watched most of the CNN interview earlier via the Taibbi/Kirn stream. Still no policies. She still can’t speak with coherency. She has a practiced rhythm of one saying something important yet what comes out is meaningless. I felt no joy elicited in me. It’s just not the energy she gives off and without the glitzy stuff around her it shows. I shared her anxiety as each tortured clause wandered into the next; Could she land the sentence?

    She is way way out of her depth.

    Taibbi’s take that there’s a real problem there seems like one to watch.

    Stocking up on popcorn for the debate. Will they let her bring her emotional support Walz?

    1. flora

      I think the Kamala poster is supposed to be a flashback to the 1960’s, San Fransisco so-called “summer of love” and Peter Max posters. It’s an attractive poster that only creates dissonance in people who remember those years. Kamala as a flower child. oh please… Kamala touts herself as a prosecutor who put people in jail, (and kept them in jail past their release dates to use as cheap labor). Not a flower child. / heh

      1. Lunker Walleye

        As a h.s. sophomore, 1966, I was assigned drawing posters for a girl running for a student body office. The theme was, “Vote for Katie. She’s a Sweetie”. I added a cute cartoon girl and embellished the thing with lots of flowers. She was victorious. Ha ha!

      2. Peter Pan

        The summer of love was 1967. A year later LBJ had dropped out, MLK & Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated, the DNC in Chicago had a police riot, and the democrat nominee, VP Hubert Humphrey, would end up getting his ass kicked by Dick Nixon before he dick’s you.

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > She has a practiced rhythm of one saying something important yet what comes out is meaningless

      I wonder what a sonogram (as in the bird songs) of Kamala would show, laid along the text. I also wonder what Kamala’s sonograms would look like, laid next to other politicians’.

      Readers, does anyone know of an easy tool that does this? Input, YouTube, output sonogram?

  14. ambrit

    Concerning the two political posters:
    The Obama poster soon turned into a placard for a quaintly Neo-liberal take on the “New Progressivism,” “The Story of ‘O’.”
    The Kamala poster brings absolute and fully submissive thoughts of “Fifty Shades of Paisley.”
    Next up, can we expect to see faux Art Deco posters for ‘Homeland Security?’ “Are you with the Nation or against it? Sign up today and fight badthink wherever it festers.”

  15. JM

    “Have we stopped to think about what LLMs actually model?” Has the tagline: “Claims about much-hyped tech show flawed understanding of language and cognition, research argues”

    Everyone here understands that AI = BS I think but this does a good job describing in more detail why AI = glorified autocomplete and not even the more modest claims boosters give about LLMs understanding language in any way.

    https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/30/ai_language_cognition_research/

    1. CA

      https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/30/ai_language_cognition_research/

      August 30, 2024

      Have we stopped to think about what LLMs actually model?
      Claims about much-hyped tech show flawed understanding of language and cognition, research argues
      By Lindsay Clark

      [ Thank you for referencing this fine and important essay. Please do add thoughts about the essay when possible. I am completely satisfied considering and using AI as an “autocomplete.” Why should I rather be dissatisfied? ]

      1. Acacia

        Why should I rather be dissatisfied?

        For starters, how about…

        (1) Because MAMAA/FANG/tech behemoth acronym du jour are strip-mining the Internet, using content for training their models without permission, all to provide your nice “harmless” auto-complete?
        (2) E.g., https://www.threads.net/@royaaryan89/post/C9GEL41SsfO
        (3) Because MAMAA/FANG et alia are pretty invested in gaming and crapifying your auto-complete to keep you inside their narrative bubble, far away from any dangerous wrongthink (a.k.a., critical thinking).
        (4) Because using “AI” for autocomplete means even moar monster data centers, consuming even more energy.

        Etc. etc.

  16. Tom Stone

    Here’s an idea for a short Trump Commercial:
    “Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago?”
    ” The Government still owes you $600, if elected I WILL MAKE SURE YOU GET IT!”
    Two sentences, one question and one promise that takes a bite out of your opponent.

    Trump is a bloviating New York asshole, however he is much less dangerous than Harris.
    Harris is an authoritarian who will do whatever it takes to gain and keep power, the phrase “Consumed by a lust for power” seems apt.
    What we are seeing with the treatment of Ritter and others is the new normal, I expect it to get worse more quickly with a Harris win than it would with a Trump win.
    Who ever ascends the throne will be facing a godawful mess between the consequences of Covid and Climate change on top of the current World War.
    I can understand why an excellerationist would vote for Harris, but I will be damned if I can understand why any one else would.

    1. Robert Gray

      > I can understand why an excellerationist would vote for Harris, but I will be damned
      > if I can understand why any one else would.

      It’s pretty clear that excellerationismo is just (another) (perverted) form of hopium.

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > excellerationist

      Typically, accelerationist.

      Alternatively, you might be suggeesting that Kamala excels at accelerationism. Or possibly that, like Excel, the spreadsheet much beloved by financiers and fraudsters for its lack of transparency (and hence avoidance of accountability), Kamala Thought is an indecipherable and unmaintainable maze of random dependencies?

    3. griffen

      Per conversation with a sufferer of TDS. Trump equals threat to democracy, thankful it was not explained as a “threat” to “our Democracy” but I digress. Harris stood for some things of importance 5 or 6 years ago and now she doesn’t…but her values remain consistent.

      Who cares if her stances change…after all she is only been a sitting VP for the past three plus years. Good grief. I like the framing explained above, that Democrats have lead the country for 6 of the past 10 years. Or further…since 2008 it was all Democrats in the WH,but those 4 years of 2017 to January 2021. So what’s been happening outside the Trump administration, do tell.

    4. John k

      I’ve been wondering why trump hasn’t used the first, and maybe the second point reminds the working class of how much trump funneled to them.

  17. Objective Ace

    Scientists have discovered that the blood coagulation protein fibrin causes the unusual clotting and inflammation that have become hallmarks of the disease, while also suppressing the body’s ability to clear the virus

    I believe this is something the drug that cannot be named has been linked with limiting: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10380762/ another plausible mechanism

    2. Steve H.

      > In silico, IVM was shown to bind with high affinity to SARS-CoV-2 SP glycan sites [9], the implications of which were confirmed in a recent in vitro study [60]. Human RBCs mixed with SARS-CoV-2 SP caused hemagglutination (HA), while IVM added concurrently blocked HA, and IVM reversed HA when added after it had formed

      I don’t know enough to even follow this article, and I do so want to believe. This looks like a mechanism. I’m clutching it with all the strength of confirmation bias until proven otherwise.

  18. Acacia

    Regarding the new RCP numbers and Nate Silver’s article on Pennsylvania, I found this chart from 538 to be interesting:

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/

    I think they are working from the same data but analyzing it differently. I claim no math/stats expertise, but what strikes me about the 538 EC vote margin chart is that while the takeaway is that “Harris wins 57 times out of 100” note that the distribution of the curve on the Harris side is almost 2x that of Trump. I believe there’s a term for this, when the distribution is unequal (skewness?), and some deeper understanding w.r.t. what it means for assigning probabilities.

    Perhaps somebody who really understands how to read this (I don’t) will elaborate.

    Another thing that strikes me is Silver’s observation that Harris could win the popular vote nationally by 2% and still lose the EC, though maybe this is just the “new normal”.

      1. ambrit

        You think that’s bad? Look into how the Ultra-Orthodox Hebrews treat women in general. (I used ‘Hebrew’ there to differentiate that group from other sorts of “Orthodox” religious groups. I know not how “Orthodox,” say, Christians or al-Islami treat their women. {Even here I keep referring to women in the possessive sense. *sigh* However, the ultra-Orthodox and fellow travelers do treat women as possessions. Which is, admittedly, an age-old social problem across cultures and civilizations.})
        Don’t believe me? Take a look, after suitable self-medication, at the film “Yentl.” (Which film I have heard almost caused a mutiny on the starship “Enterprise.”)

        1. steppenwolf fetchit

          Well, we see how the Taliban treat women in Afghanistan. So there is one example of Hyper-Islamodox practice to be examined.

Comments are closed.