By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Bird Song of the Day
Readers have been so happy with the mockingbirds I’m going to keep doing them. Now entering Week Three!
Long-tailed Mockingbird, Road to Ronquillo at -14.80588, -74.78986, Ica, Peru. “Birds singing on top of tall cacti early in the morning.”
Readers, this Water Cooler is abbreviated because I am finishing up a post on the “Insect Apocalypse.” Herewith some current events as conversation starters:
“Schwab, Fidelity, other online trading brokerages appear to go dark during huge market sell-off” [Associated Press]. “Several online brokerage firms including Charles Schwab, Fidelity and Vanguard appeared to be down for thousands of users early Monday during one of the biggest stock markets sell-offs of 2024. User reports appeared to peak around and just before 10 a.m. ET, data from outage tracker Downdectector shows. Some frustrated customers online said that they were unable to log in or access their account balances.” • Not like what Goldman did to Michael Burry in The Big Short, I am sure. Honor roll:
🚨#BREAKING: Multiple brokerages, including Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, TD Ameritrade, E-Trade, UPS, CenturyLink, and Interactive Brokers, are currently down and reporting errors amid market crashes. pic.twitter.com/H2htHnXynT
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) August 5, 2024
Meanwhile, “to the bare walls!”
CVS last night
Flowflex completely gone
Several other brands gone
Binax being snatched up pic.twitter.com/NrlMnz9yI7
— Alexander Riccio (@co2trackers) (@ariccio) August 5, 2024
This is New York. I imagine similar scenes in California.
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 jsn:
jsn writes: “Hollyhock in front of the old store.”
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J.K. Galbraith
And speaking of accounting identities, over on links this morning a story about how public dept accrues to the private sector. I always thought it went down a rat hole.
Is there a difference?
Well there is good debt and bad dept but most of congress is well payed not to know the difference.
> Is there a difference?
So far as I know, the governemnt isn’t actually run by crypto bros, so yes there is.
This scene from Wolf of Wall Street…the core principle of the place being described to a new broker hire as welcome to the world… NSFW or the kids.
I suppose some things have changed over time, and then again perhaps less so. Probably less humming going on today in some erstwhile “high places”…
https://youtu.be/klIbHMw9w2Q?si=us3x5zYDZc_Gkddq
Los Angeles Times: This California COVID surge is stronger, longer-lasting than expected, surprising experts
https://www.gazettextra.com/news/nation_world/this-california-covid-surge-is-stronger-longer-lasting-than-expected-surprising-experts/article_bcd83b85-243b-564c-ac26-50d0dc3f107d.html
“This is not a benign wave,” wrote Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, in a blog post published Saturday. “It’s a major wave now … we haven’t yet reached the plateau.”
I suppose that an upside of a pharmacy selling out of certain products is that these events improve the sales to inventory ratio, so the suits have something to be happy about. /s
throughout wife’s career at the local isd…including the careers of both boys…me and the school nurse established surveillance of the pharmacy, one actual supermarket(maybe an acre of actual store footprint, for perspective), and 2 dollar stores respective medical shelves…to see what was selling.
we did this for 18 years or more…and got Tam and both boys on board, as well as her husbands and their kids.
(as lambert sez, Citizen Science!…but entirely kept in the head, no notes or anything)
but between us, we were able to predict various gutbug outbreaks pretty consistently…as well as just having a general awareness of what was going around in our relatively isolated county.
Will there more added later? Asking for friend;-)
No, sorry!
Funny, I thought this was asking for more covid tests as I read from the top of the comments. “No, sorry!” probably accurate nonetheless!
no.
you’re stuck with us.
deal,lol.
I am located in the CA central coast and the Covid wave started up here a couple weeks ago. In my small circle of coworkers and others I know of about 10 cases. It seems to have plateaued. School starts here for kids in two weeks. It might get an upswing.
Starmer’s “action man” role, adding to his his broadcasts where he 99% of the time had the Union Flag clearly visible behind him in shot worries people like me. Those who live in the US probably wouldn’t see anything odd. However, most British parliamentarians (and ESPECIALLY those who are not right-wing) never put a flag in shot. It was seen as crass. We never saw a need to “fly the flag” – Terry Pratchett said it best in a novel: “Have you ever flown the flag?”; “NO!”; “Why not?”; “We don’t need to to show we’re the best, we already know!”
I paraphrase a bit but his “I’m the ultimate Brit” thing rings hollow. Once upon a time you took down nasty big companies and punched up. Why the change?
One final observation. I find it utterly amusing at how many British people who profess their Britishness, fly the flag upside down/back to front. If you can pass a basic test of the criteria I’d expect you to know which way the flag goes. When I took the Aussie Citizenship test in 2014 it took me all of 30 seconds to learn the answers to the only questions I wasn’t already sure about. The “non-Anglo candidates” who didn’t know “the Westminster system” took barely a minute more. Something to think about. You DO NOT need to get the Union Flag correct but if you think you’re “more proper British” when you don’t know your flag then I’m entitled to call BS.
[ Starmer’s “action man” role, adding to his his broadcasts where he 99% of the time had the Union Flag clearly visible behind him in shot worries people like me… ]
Really incisive comment. Starmer played the bully from the beginning, and it worked because of the policy stupidity of the Tories, but from here Tory policy is not the issue. Starmer has to plan now, but I have no sense whether that is readily possible.
Many thanks. I don’t have skin in the game this time round (no national survey I’ve happened to run at the right time to coincide with a surprise General Election!).
However, I totally agree that Starmer has a very wide but shallow pool of support. The “old rules” that “it takes a couple of general elections to whittle away a majority approaching 200” is now nonsense. There is no stability and I consider it feasible (though granted definitely not the most probable) outcome of the next election that we have PM Farage by 2029.
My best guess is a narrow Labour victory with the opposition going through what happened in first half of 20th century: two parties vying to be the official opposition, and from there, the govt – Lib Dems incorporating all the “Tory Wets” vs Farage. THAT will shake up Labour, if nothing else, to make them realise “we really could lose properly and need proportional representation”.
He’s looking exactly like Boris Johnson, who also loved flags, expelling people from his own party, and waffling about serious problems while doing nothing.
PS Most Brits are stupid regarding their own citizenship. Majority couldn’t tell if Union Flag was upside down.
BTW One of those “things changing to reflect new usage” is that whilst the Union Jack was historically correct only for naval use, Flag/Jack are now considered synonymous so I won’t get on that hobby horse.
Still had to explain to family last week what was the flag being flown by one of two competing houses on the main road who have flags ranging from EU/Union Flag/English/Welsh/Scottish…. through to MY LITTLE PONY flags. They were flying the English Royal Standard 3 Lions…..which was a little odd given who technically is allowed to fly it and when but whatever, I’m possibly out of touch on that too.
As a non-Brit with OCD, I always knew which way is proper. Do I get free citizenship or something? :)
And, as I found out one time, you cannot ‘officially’ get a Naval Ensign unless you are registered as the owner of a boat. (I thought it would be neat to fly the Naval Ensign puttering about Biscayne Bay.)
As for Starmer fronting for King and Country, well, I would direct your attention to the fact that this would qualify him as a Union Fascist. Didn’t Mosley and his lot go in for flags a lot back then?
The only saving grace on either side of the pond is that we are spared the ravages of any truly capable Authoritarians. Thank the Deities for small favours.
yeah…i prefer my authoritarian rulers to be as incompetent as possible.
and i’ll allow only one american flag on my side of the place…a tiny one that the wind dislodged from Don’s big grapevine wreath down at the little pasture graveyard.
its hung upside down and inconspicuous on one of the telephone poles that hold up the Wilderness Bar.
Mom, of course, since Don’s death, has had us replace his american flag twice a year, as it gets tattered…and then for me to burn the tattered one with respect….which i do, but out of respect for Don, not my erstwhile country.
one of these days, i’ll make my own flag…and it’ll have a raised middle finger on it.
i’ll fly that one.
and proudly.
A good poster would be the flag, (insert country of choice here,) flying off of a raised middle finger. Say, somewhat in the Terry Gilliam style.
Then, as the withering wittols of wokeism wrangle wonderingly over the ‘meaning’ of said poster, we will create another poster!
I suppose that the old Gadsden flag was the 18th century equivalent of a raised finger at the time.
Historically only people on the far right would fly the Union Jack.
I assume you mean ‘the Butcher’s Apron‘?
Re: Starmer and “symbols of patriotism”
I was in the UK (Bristol fwiw) when the recent election was called and my hosts letterbox was peppered with flyers. I saw that the Labour one was all Starmer and contained this line: Country first, always which I found jarring. It was pretty clear then that he would continue to wrap himself in the flag.
If I were feeling generous I’d say it’s to undercut expected right-wing media attacks. However, I think he may actually believe his own PR.
Re: flags – I’ve always tended to side with Banksy in this
Speaking of down, though unrelated to the trading platforms mentioned above, I am repeatedly getting errors when trying to perform searches on DuckDuckGo. This is across two platforms (Windows and Android) and two networks (internet and mobile).
Yes. Duck, Duck, go wouldn’t give me naked capitalism and showed an error message, but google worked fine.
Speaking of Google:
Google loses massive antitrust case over its search dominance
“U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled Monday that Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation.”
Having good news — in fact, the only good news — come from anti-trust wasn’t on my Bingo card.
Meanwhile, the extremely bright and articulate Kamala hasn’t done a single press conference, so nobody can ask her when she’s going to wrap Lina Khan in a loving embrace….
It is good news.
Kamala could be cramming for the “maybe” debate. Too busy rehearsing in front of a mirror, to hug Lina Khan. hehe
I recently discovered Khan published “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” when she was 28yo! Bezos is a spooky character.
I had problems with DDG and Naked Capitalism last year and eventually gave up s
using it.
Yep. My Duck Duck Go gone-and-went.
I’m on Linux Mint
I’m no hard-core techie but I do a lot of online research. DDG kept coming up empty so I started comparing –with exactly the same search terms — presearch.com and now all is happy. My warm and fuzzies about DDG are a thing of the past. As to why/ how this is happening –I’ve no idea.
One more trivial observation– I was looking for a particular cat breed — info I knew was out there somewhere. Bupkus. So (gak) I tried (AI) Copilot and there it was. Another reason to crappify search!
seems to be working at 1715 hrs eastern.
Anyone searching in Indonesia? ;)
Yes, please insert duck joke here (I’m running on empty with only two in my repertoire.)
DDG working fine for me.
It was working again (from my perspective) within about an hour of when I first reported it. Curious timing with regards to the brokerage issues, but probably just coincidence.
Used to use DDG but they announced they would not allow any postings/links etc. from those mean people, the Russians. DDG, corporate shills and Surveillance Capitalists, funk them. I’m very happy with Brave now.
I used Brave early on but man did they chase me away with a bunch of seemingly questionable choices. I gather they may be better now, but…
Brave has received negative press for diverting ad revenue from websites to itself,[30] collecting unsolicited donations for content creators without their consent,[43] suggesting affiliate links in the address bar[49] and installing a paid VPN service without the user’s consent.[58]
For natural disaster nerds: the Chilcotin River, a major tributary of the Fraser R in central British Columbia, has been blocked by a large landslide since July 30th, and earlier this morning the water backed up above this barrier has started to cut through it.
Various drone and other images are available here, including views from fixed cameras updated every 15 mins or so.
Apart from potential downstream flooding, the major concern is the risk to an incoming migration of spawning salmon, which usually arrives in a few days.
Wow, thank you for posting that link! Amazing to see in real time (more or less), How the Earth’s surface has been and is now being reshaped by these events. Mother Nature…
Slides along this same stretch of river have been a regular occurrence, most recently in 1964 and 2004. The 1964 event is described in a contemporary fisheries report.
Defense Minister of Russia visited Iran today.
(IMO) only way to stop Israel and DC from pushing us all to WW3, is for Russia to give a soft security guarantee to Iran
https://x.com/IranObserver0/status/1820493672443765181
Not without a force demonstration. Your idea was a reasonable proposal 2 or 3 years ago, but Israel is genocidal, set off a bomb in Iran, and murdered a negotiator after a previous tit for tat. No one can reasonably say Israel won’t strike a mall or a school if they feel like it. Tehran has to act. It’s legitimacy 101.
Iran should smoke the nukes.
period.
remove that threat…just take it away from the armageddonists.
then the islamic world can maybe get their shit together, realise that they have more common interests than not, and push those pesky irrational and belligerent people into the sea.
as should have been done a long, long time ago.
might be cool to have another flourishing of Islamic Humanities, at some point, too…ive enjoyed the products of the last one(circa: Bagdhad Caliphate, etc)..but that aint gonna happen until the zionists are defeated utterly.
Last time they got some hits in near Dimona. If they hit Dimona, Palmachim (Jericho missiles), and Haifa, they just have to deal with planes.
Of course, thanks to Kiev hitting some Russian early warning radars facing South towards the Mideast, Iran may have a harder time getting early warning from Russia…
i reckon there’s HUMINT to fill in the gaps.
from multiple sources, no less.
i imagine that Iran, Syria…and all the rest…including Russia, herself…has seen it in their interests to keep track of such things…which are hard to hide, these day, unless its on a submarine….and i havent heard squat about israel having subs.
why would they, except for samson option, since all their foes are land based.
maybe “we” gave them a sub on the sly?
for such a purpose?
making, once again, our own evil just as great as theirs.
i grow weary of my nation being on the wrong side so consistently.
It seems the State of Israel has six diesel-electric submarines with both torpedo and cruise missile capabilities. There are hints that the newer models can launch strategic missiles as well.
See: https://www.jns.org/israel-news/israeli-navy/23/8/30/314636/
Don’t forget that religious fanatics consider all non-co-religionists as potential enemies. Those subs could be designed to attack anyone in the world.
Yah, the Zios have subs, with both cruise missile and vertical launch “features.” Likely carrying nuclear explosives. https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/01/israels-submarine-secret-new-dolphin-class-boat-could-have-vls/ See Samson Option for possible uses.
Subs built with US and German money by the Krupps werks, same Corp that built the WW I and Nazi U-boat fleets.
Is that irony, humor or sorrow?
> remove that threat
I’ve been muttering somebody, don’t care who, should have sent a wet team into Israel’s nuclear facility(ies). Too late now, I suppose
In other words . . . genocide them? One good genocide deserves another?
Shoigu has diffent title now (Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation). I guess he came to approve Iranian retaliation plan.
what a time to be alive in the world, huh?
my eldest is working in one of my hometowns, Tomball, tx…there in what once was the far exurbs of northern houston.
now, a part of the conglomeration.
i told him…three times…over the last few days ere he left:”keep a go bag, and an eye on what the USA does in israel…and GTFO if “we” do anything direct.”
news to both boys that i had carried a go-bag forever, on every trip they’d ever taken to greater houston area to visit relatives.
in case our leaders(sic) had indigestion and started WW3, and we had to make our way back way out here, on foot.
Depends what was in those Russian transports. Maybe some brand new S500’s with Russian crews ? Must be time by now to see how the F 35’s go in a real war. Would be valuable information for future Russian operations in Europe.
For celebrity Covid anecdata, Jon Stewart will not be on his show this week because he has tested positive for Covid-19. The announcement gave no indication of symptoms or reason for the test, but just that he was out and his one day this week will be subbed and he is expected to be back next Monday.
Famous baseball player Freddie Freeman’s child has
Guillain-Barré Syndrome. It’s associated as of late with modern vaccines that are touted as safe and effective. I’m in line to get a fifth booster right now /s
My buddy from Tucson got Guillain-Barré Syndrome when he was 7 in the early 1960’s and spent a year and a half in an iron lung. He’s still disabled from it’s effects 60 years later.
I had put off a medical procedure for as long as I could because I did not want to be around a bunch of maskless people at the surgery center.
I took the earliest appointment (6:00 AM) in the hopes that it would not be a popular time. Liberally sprayed XLEAR before I left home.
When I showed up, there were more staff than there were patients. I only saw one masked staff member.
I wore an N95 into the facility and kept waiting for them to ask me to remove it. The nurse anesthetist came in, unmasked, to talk to me about the procedure. She left to get the consent forms and when she came back she was wearing what looked like an N95. (I had already taken my glasses off so I couldn’t tell for sure.) I still kept waiting for someone to ask me to remove my mask. The anesthetist informed me that I would need oxygen, but I could wear a mask over the oxygen tubes and leave it on throughout the procedure. I told her that there was a lot of COVID going around in our area, and she replied, “Oh, I KNOW!”. She then proceeded to tell me how much she worries about bringing home something (like COVID) from work to her 90 year old mother. (I didn’t say anything, but I wondered if she was that worried, why didn’t she wear a frikkin’ mask.) Oh, well.
Doctor greets me in the procedure room, maskless.
When I woke up in the recovery room, oxygen tubes were gone, but my N95 was snugly fit on my face. Whoever adjusted it really did a great job.
My ride came in with a HEPA filter and ran it until I left. (I forgot to bring my trusty ARANET, so I don’t know what the CO2 readings in the recovery area were.)
When I got out to the car, I used Betadine mouth wash.
That’s about as safe as I could do it.
Many thanks to NC (especially Lambert) for all of the tips on keeping COVID safe.
Will send some $$ to the tip jar.
Thanks for sharing this experience. And a little report from the rust belt: after seeing the helpful tweet above reporting empty Covid test shelves in California and New York drug stores, I just stopped by my local pharmacy and picked up the last two boxes of BINAX (total: 4 tests for $48 — thanks, Joe Biden!). The pharmacy clerk said they might get more in on Wed. or Friday. Or not. Who knows?
Hope all went well! If for some reason it didn’t, well, it sure wasn’t your fault… Wishing you a speedy recovery.
Thanks. Everything is fine! Whew! Glad it’s over.
Thanks for that report. Four years ago undergoing such a medical procedure would have been mundane but your description of 2024 makes it sound like a series of bullet dodges – which it was. Hopefully you took away no “souvenirs” of your trip to the hospital.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, whom we all love and adore, gets shredded in this Israeli piece:
The free world is in an acute crisis, as shown by its reaction to terrorists’ deaths
Opinion: The reactions of many countries and organizations to the death of Ismail Haniyeh meant to uphold the values of freedom show that the free world is in deep decay and that the world crisis has become acute
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s100rw69tr
“Whatever Benjamin Netanyahu’s flaws as Prime Minister of Israel, and these flaws are many and deep, he is entirely right to publicly reject the views of those who “urge me to end the war, claiming it is unwinnable.””
Mr. Market’s gonna need something stronger than mere alcohol in the coming days…
aweright, dammit..i’m assigning homework!
our well traveled/widely domociled commentariat can surely put it to bed who is more “Free”…and/or Happy…china, russia, eurozone, USA
so chime in, for our erudition…us less traveled folks.
will one get swept up by the thought police in china if one criticizes the gov?
that has happened in usa…but its usually a thrid party(facebook, socmed mob) that does the cancelling.
what about Russia?
can one publically criticize Putin…or is it all just a reinvigorated soviet state, as our betters would have us believe?
similarly…when Don’s cousin and her hubs were up, a month ago…right after the trump assassination attempt…and my Mom lit into me in front of them(weird, in itself)…his cousin chimed in that Russians and Chinese wer all starving…implied that they needed us to rescue them…
some definitive experience on the ground…and here, at NC…would be helpful.
(hell, i’ve “known” a bunch of y’all for years,lol)
Alex Krainer has some thoughts, The meaning of freedom and security. Brief and worth a read. No surprise I got this here at NC back on July 23.
The guys at the The Duran recently made mention of the fact that citizens of Russia are now on track to be more prosperous than citizens of the EU. I found that remarkable as originally the EU was all about prosperity rather than amateur geopolitics. Made they should forget about the EU and go back to the Common Market when things worked better. And when Alexander Christoforou is doing his walk & talks when in Russia, it all seems to be modern and clean with no graffiti in sight.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2024/08/04/athlete-sick-swimming-dirty-seine/74666387007/
Belgian triathlete gets sick after competing in Seine river
Wow.
The Olympic Committee knew the Seine was a cesspool.
From Forbes:
“The Seine River has been plagued by overflowing sewage pipes after heavy rains, making the river off-limits to swimming for more than 100 years.”
France built a vast rainwater storage facility to try to make the river safe for swimming competitions.
Paris Olympian Swimmers Remain At Risk Of Infections
https://7news.com.au/sport/olympics/over-40-athletes-test-positive-for-covid-as-virus-rips-through-australian-olympic-team-c-15599666
Over 40 athletes test positive for COVID as virus rips through Australian Olympic team
More than 40 athletes have tested positive as doctors work hard to minimise the spread.
Would it be too simplistic to draw a straight line to this quote from Australia’s chef de mission a few weeks ago?
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/30/paris-olympics-australia-swimming-lani-pallister-tests-positive-covid
“… this is not Tokyo.” No, it is not. It is more like Wuhan.
In Wuhan they didn’t make you swim in poo.
What’s interesting is if you’re a NY Times reader, COVID doesn’t exist at the Olympics, at least based on their front page coverage I’ve scrolled past. If only it were thus.
Stupid is as stupid does.
“Schwab, Fidelity, other online trading brokerages appear to go dark during huge market sell-off” *********** It’s an EMERGENCY! The FED needs to cut interest to 0% NOW! So those earning 5% interest will see that go instead to the casino traders in the insanely overpriced stock market.
a natural end-game of what happens when commissions = $0.00.
Right. I’m a saver and I dint want the interest rate cut. I’m finally making a little bit of money in my money.
This consumerist economy, terrible!!
Don’t have much cash on savings, but I do have a small stock account. Just began getting a 401K. My stocks are around $20k, while the 401k is far less. Lost $500 in value today.
Your 401k has been unburdened, by what has been today in the markets.
They double counted ETrade, which was acquired by Schwab, but missed Morgan Stanley, which grabbed Ameritrade
Not to be pedantic, but it’s the other way around (Schwab bought TD Ameritrade and MS bought E-Trade).
And RobinHood actually reversed some overnight trades that were confirmed as having executed.
That’s a new level.
I fortunately missed the Schwab outage this morning, begin content to just let things unfold as they will.
“Turn those machines back on”
Somebody had to say it. :-)
I enjoyed the song of the Long-tailed Mockingbird. I especially liked its lyrical quality.
saw bosslady of the local post office takin out trash as i pulled up…known her for 30 years.
(and her drawl is all kindsa sexy,lol)
she sez that yes, post office in hinterlands is short staffed…that they, right here, are OK, because locals want jobs that have bennies…but that the big mail nexii, like abilene, where all our mail is channeled through, are hurting for people to do the work.
hence, my lil ol pension check was 5 days late…having taken 7 days to get from just north of downtown austin to me.
thats right at 100 miles.
but it had to go, as forever, to abilene, first.
just a lil anecdata to plug into y’all’s narrative frameworks.
Yeah, our local mail can’t go to a processing center in VT anymore – has to go to Connecticut because efficiencies…
Can’t believe that Biden left DeJoy in charge. Our wonderful “next FDR” does it again.
Uh huh. All of our packages have to go through Mobile before coming to the rancid underbelly of Mississippi. Even some from Gulfport and Slidell.
Atlanta mail distribution service is sucking mud too. Some mail packages get to their destinations after some dubious tracking.
If the US Government can’t get the mail right what else isn’t working?
The US Government got the mail right until it was deliberately sabotaged by the Commissar Mole DeJoy whose mission was to make the US Government get the mail wrong.
It is not as if the US Government “can’t” get the mail right. But it won’t be permitted to get the mail right until the Commissar Mole DeJoy and everyone he hired in are deleted from the Postal Service.
One wonders if a President Kamala will have the power to delete the DeJoyists and if so, whether she will use it.
Amforta’s, who gets the float?
Ensuring the checks arrive “A little late” when dealing with the amount of pension $ Texas sends out offers an opportunity for a small but steady income stream.
so long as that tiny ass check remains uncashed, TRS,,,teachers retirement system of texas….gets the float/vig.
could you live on $1200 a month, tom?
its all rather insulting…but not all that surprising, really..given the whole teachers=commies BS thats been forced down all these folks throats for50years(including most of the teachers i know,lol)
thats why our local teachers tend to marry rich ranchers.
theres been many a woman teacher who’s looked at me…and even said as much, given enough alcohol…that “oh, would that I had gone a different path”…they’d be with some romantic, poor fuck like me, that brings them flowers and whatnot…and would …say…stick by them,,and not run off with a waitress…when they got cancer.
because their husbands, the ranchers, etc…are mostly total assholes.
I’m curious what opinions people have of personal air purifiers like the Air Tamer? I’ve bought A320s for myself and close friends who fly a lot. My understanding is that they are beneficial, an extra layer of protection against Covid.
I first heard about them on NC a while ago but haven’t seen them mentioned in a while.
In our household we got a few hepa filters from costco, but they are too noisy to be accepted by everyone for constant use. I made a corsi box using the quietest computer fans (standard desktop) I could find: it’s much better! And quite a bit less expensive. Thus it gets used a lot more. Details just do search for Corsi-rosenthal box, lots of designs come up. There are many with box fans that do clean quite a bit of air but are good bit more noisy.
Ionizers can make ozone, which is harmful to your health. There are small carbon filter air purifiers that don’t produce ions/ ozone. I have one that I like. Fits in a car cupholder and I bought it for $20 at a home improvement store.
My husband and I use AirTamers for those times when we can’t/won’t mask (airport food, bank ID, teaching). We also use N95s when we can, Xlear, claritin and nasal neosporin. So far no covid. I looked into them because Yves mentioned that she had gotten one. My understanding is that they do not produce an amount of ozone that matters. Certainly given the amount of time we have them on it wouldn’t be a problem.
If you’re in need of a comic interlude, see Matt Taibbi’s latest titled “Bat Scares Egghead Couple: Trump Blamed.”
I’d imagine the white dudes for harris feel validated.
OMFG.
Original “op-ed” courtesy of archive.ph.
In case you’re in need of a comic interlude, here’s Matt Taibbi’s latest titled “Bat Scares Egghead Couple: Trump Blamed.”
“Calamity.” I’d imagine the white dudes for kamala feel majorly validated.
OMFG.
Original “op-ed” courtesy of archive.ph: https://archive.ph/aXyuE
Don’t know what happened, but here’s the Taibbi link:
https://www.racket.news/p/bat-scares-egghead-couple-trump-blamed
Oh, wow, that essay does seem vacuous. This woman seems functionally stupid. If only the CDC took COVID, which is currently disabling people daily, and kills many more people annually than the flu does, as seriously as it does bats. This is the stupidest timeline.
“I don’t want to live in a country that doesn’t hold the health and safety of its citizens in high regard,”
She says unironically, also explaining how much they had to pay for treatment and rabies jabs. Universal healthcare would show how much genuine regard a country has for the health and safety of its citizens, something the author fails to consider vis a vis US politicians.
Maybe vote fro someone who actually campaigns for that instead of either Harris or Trump.
Lordy. Assuming she doesn’t suffer from chiroptophobia (fear of bats) and didn’t have a sheriff’s deputy, a county health nurse, state animal control, the CDC, and an E.R. doctor all on speed dial, a simple google search for how to safely remove a bat from inside your house would have been quicker.
I was designated the official “bat wrangler” at my last apartment by the building’s caretaker. When one of the little critters got in, I’d grab my fishing net and catch it midair if it was flying in the hallway and scoop it up if it was on the floor and then slowly twist the net to keep it from escaping the net as I walked it outside. If it didn’t fly off immediately after I got it outside, about 30 seconds after placing the net on the ground, the bat would take off.
Bats are a good luck talisman in Saline hot springs and they do touch and goes at night on the Volcano tub, which is roundly rectangular and makes for a good aircraft carrier of sorts, and there will be usually 4 or 5 soakers on either side of the ‘deck’ as it were, as the bats get their needed water.
It’s quite something to witness~
the real risk of a bat flying through a house is rabies… she shouldnt of called the CDC she should of gone to the hospital and gotten a rabies shot.
~5% of bats carry rabies, and their bites/scratches are sometimes not noticeable. rabies is nearly 100% fatal once symptoms appear.
. . . ” Early citizens packed kids in wagons and rode into forests teeming with human and animal predators.”
What “human predators” is Taibbi referring to? What “human predators” were the forests teeming with?
$4.01k update
54,544.00, or fight!
So, my retirement account is now in backwardation, er, i’m losing money, having bought in @ $56k on a ground floor opportunity with a mason jar’s proceeds primarily in Lincolns at a Coinstar machine in a supermarket, and i’m a bit distraught, but wait, i’m over it now.
You always have to look for the silver lining in these things, and this will allow our government to purchase even more Bitcoin than they would have been able to, only a week ago.
Adin Ross Gives Trump a Cybertruck, a Rolex and Access to a Heavily Male Audience
The 23-year-old internet celebrity is enormously popular with a testosterone-heavy demographic that the former president sees as critical to his bid for office. (NYT)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Adin is from Tiny Town and is a ‘twitch streamer’ who all the kids and young adults like to watch play apparently. Similar to Drake the rapper, he has an amazing gambling problem for such a young person.
https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/news-you-guys-math-adin-ross-claims-potentially-lost-40-million-gambling
MORE THAN HALF a million concurrent viewers were tuned in to streamer Adin Ross‘ Kick channel on Monday afternoon to watch an interview with Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida. In addition to hearing the GOP presidential nominee rant about some of his favorite topics, they also saw Trump receive two expensive, potentially illegal gifts from Ross: a gold Rolex and a custom-wrapped Cybertruck.
Ross is a prolific 23-year-old streamer with millions of followers across Kick, X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube, renowned for his boisterous energy and bro-ish antics that frequently cross a line into toxic territory. He has previously platformed the white supremacist Nick Fuentes, as well as the alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate, a mentor of sorts. In March, Ross accidentally snitched on Tate as he planned to flee criminal charges in Romania. (Tate, who is awaiting trial, has denied the charges.) After several Twitch bans over the years, the last one permanent, Ross in 2023 moved to the streaming platform Kick, which allows gambling content and is barely moderated. “We can do whatever the fuck we want,” he told his fans at the time.
Ross began Monday’s Kick stream by acknowledging that many doubted he had really landed a Trump interview. “Today is going to be the most important stream I’ve ever done,” he said after Trump came out to 50 Cent‘s “Many Men (Wish Death)” and joined Ross before a small audience. “Everyone thought this was going to be fake,” he added. (Ross’ last blockbuster political interview, pitched as a conversation with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, instead saw him talking to a professional impersonator.)
Wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat, Ross made no effort to sound or appear impartial. His questions set up Trump to complain about everything from supposed liberal bias in schools (“Even the teachers have been brainwashed,” the former president said) and border security (though, unusually, Trump did not mention Hannibal Lecter this time). Trump, for his part, praised Ross as an “outstanding” young man, predicted that the livestream would break viewership records, and said that his youngest son, Barron Trump, is a “big fan” of Ross. From Trump’s positive comments on Ross’ youth and his clout as an influencer, it seems he saw the chummy interview as a welcome advantage in an intensifying battle for the hearts and minds of Gen Z. Harris is likewise garnering support from prominent content creators and riding the momentum of Zoomer memes.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/adin-ross-trump-rolex-cybertruck-interview-1235074316/
Who needs policies when you can “ride the momentum of Zoomer memes”
There was a post about out of stock covid tests. My sister in law told me she got some just recently at Costco *and* they had the test kit with both Flu and Covid19 on the same unit (planning ahead for h5n1 no doubt). Key: you have to ask for them at the pharmacy.
Judgement on COVID-19 goes HEAVY METAL
Andre Antunes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JPRvxTjfOk (2:31)
Hm, Monday, market tanks, war imminent.
Time to dance like there’s no tomorrow!
Nile Rodgers & CHIC: Tiny Desk Concert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRERgcQe-fQ
Taibbi’s latest podcast. I was extremely relieved to see that I’m not the only person (other than the NC regulars) who is noticing the kind of ridiculous script being unleashed on the American people (and the world generally).
https://www.racket.news/p/update-on-tonights-livestream-at
The funny thing is that this reminds me of the antics of the Chinese generals of the Qing Dynasty before the Battle of Ningbo (I think). They “knew,” even before the battle, that they were going to win because the idea that foreigners could best Manchu soldiers was impossible and that the important thing was to decide who will get credit for what and what poems should be composed to commemorate the “great victory.” (The aftermath needs to elaboration) Fast forward to Hilary in 2016 and the Ukrainian “counteroffensive” in 2023, we see the same thing: too much time wasted on writing the script that the parties involved “knew” were inevitable, then finding something or other to blame for their own delusion and failure. (For the Manchus, I think it was something like perfidy and disloyalty of the Southern Chinese–and I guess we know what happened to the Manchus, too). I don’t have a good feeling about this. Maybe the Chinese (or whoever) will return the favor by burning the American Summer Palace and eating all the endangered antelopes (I think?) for giggles in a few years…