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 Day Three of Week Three!
Long-tailed Mockingbird, 3 km E Pacoa Beach, Guayas, Ecuador. “Song. Seen. Desert all green with herbs owing to ‘El Nino.'” A lot going on here!
In Case You Might Miss…
- Irrational exuberance among the Democrats.
- Introducing Walz.
- Boeing’s Starliner debacle.
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:
Drops for Trump across the board, including a 2.5% drop nationally (almost outside the margin of error, ha ha), and a blue triangle on the mao for the first time.
* * * * * * Kamala (D): “”Bringing back the joy”: Kamala Harris’ rally blows away JD Vance’s weird appearance across town” [Amanda Marcotte, Salon]. I didn’t know Marcotte was still typing: “[T]he Harris/Walz rally felt like a rousing speech by Coach Eric Taylor of ‘Friday Night Lights’ combined with the front row at Coachella. The cheers were so loud that I regretted not bringing my earplugs. The mood was jubilant, even though folks had to wait hours in the heat and humidity to even get into the place. The campaign claimed over 12,000 people showed up, which is not an exaggeration. Even as Harris and Walz gave the final speeches of the evening, the line to get into the overflow room — just to watch the event on TV — went on for multiple city blocks.” Always hire a hall that’s too small; good advance work by the Harris team. More: “‘Thank you for bringing back the joy,’ Walz said, to a thunderous reception. A simple line, but it brought the house down because of the plain-spoken truth Walz has swiftly become famous for. ‘Joy’ was the word of the night. People in the stands practically vibrated with it. In the air was a visceral hope that this campaign would be the end of the long national nightmare that is Trump and the MAGA movement.” • “Our long national nightmare” is surely a reference to this Gerald Ford quotation, following Nixon’s Watergate defenestration. (Maybe Kamala could adapt this line from Ford’s speech: “I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your
Presidentcandidate by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers.” I wonder if Marcotte thought of that…). Anyhow–Kamala (D): ” Democrats Lost Their Minds Over Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ New Midwestern Running Mate” [HuffPo]. • Indeed. But they would have lost their minds over Shapiro, too. After all, who doesn’t love an IDF volunteer?
Kamala (D): “Axelrod: A Lot Of ‘Irrational Exuberance’ Around Kamala Harris, ‘It Is Absolutely Trump’s Race To Lose'” [RealClearPolitics]. From a CNN transcript: “There’s a lot of irrational exuberance on the Democratic side of the aisle right now because there was despair for some period of time about what November was going to look like. Now people feel like there’s a chance.” • Investopedia, “Irrational Exuberance: Definition, Origin, Example“: “Irrational exuberance refers to investor enthusiasm that drives asset prices higher than those assets’ fundamentals justify. The term was popularized by former Fed chair Alan Greenspan in a 1996 speech, “The Challenge of Central Banking in a Democratic Society.” The speech was given near the beginning of the 1990s dot-com bubble, a textbook example of irrational exuberance.” • Flipping the textbook open to another page–
“The Irrational Analysis of David Axelrod” [MaShrChing, Daily Kos]. “Why would he be throwing a bucket of cold water on D voter enthusiasm?” • Proving Axelrod’s point….
* * * Walz:
Kamala (D): “A blank slate” [Morning Consult]. “Nearly 3 in 5 voters nationwide (57%) said they’d never heard of Walz…. That gives Walz, and campaign operatives on both sides of the aisle, plenty of room to try to move his numbers in the right or wrong direction. Walz and his party are trying to frame him as a so-called normie who has passed common-sense legislation with Democratic partners in the legislature, while Republicans have leaned into attacks branding him as a radical leftist that makes the top of the Democratic ticket the most extreme in history.” We saw the same process whereby a candidate is “introduced” with Vance. Now we are seeing it with Walz. Since everything is like high school, the process is at the very least a hazing ritual. But in Minnesota: “According to our surveys conducted over the past three months, a solid 55% of voters approve of Walz’s job performance in Minnesota, which is more educated and leans further left than neighboring upper Midwest states Michigan and Wisconsin. The good news is that some of the groups north of Walz’s overall approval rating — 18- to 34-year-olds, liberals, moderates, Black voters, Hispanic voters and Americans who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 — are all groups that Biden had underperformed with this election cycle before he dropped out last month. They also all happen to be the types of voters that Harris has polled better among in recent weeks. The bad news is that the worst-performing groups for Walz all look like the worst-performing groups for Democrats in general: whites without a college degree, conservatives, Republicans and voters who backed Trump in 2020. Those groups of voters over in Pennsylvania, are also more likely to approve of Gov. Shapiro, the other VP finalist, especially Trump ‘20 voters and Republicans, at 29% and 30%, respectively. All of which is to say that the data bears out the notion that ‘do no harm,’ the so-called first rule of vice presidential picks, won out here for Harris. Given a choice between sticking with what appears to be working for her personally or changing things up, she chose the former.” • Plenty of people challenge the notion that a “favorite son” as VP (here Shapiro in PA) has any impact at all. I challenge the notion that Shapiro would have helped in PA; I think the events in Butler have put the PA Republicans on a war footing, and they will do whatever it takes to win the state (including crawling over broken glass).
Kamala (D): “The math behind why Harris picked Walz and why she may regret it” [Harry Enten, CNN]. This is more interesting than the math: “Recall how Democrats started calling Republicans Donald Trump and JD Vance “weird” a few weeks ago. The attack might have felt like something out of high school [like everything!] but the crazy thing is that it seems to have worked. A look at Google trend data reveals a recent increase in searches for the word ‘weird.’ More than that, the topics associated with “weird” were Make America Great Again, the Republican Party, Vance and Walz. Why Walz? He’s been credited as the first one to have started calling Republicans weird in any large-scale way.” OK, but who amplfied it? That doesn’t seem to be part of the story More: “And we know that the Harris campaign was paying attention because it fired off at least one email missive that suggested that the “weird” attacks against the Republican ticket were driving the online conversation. The fact that Harris selected a candidate who does well online shouldn’t be surprising – this is the campaign that has embraced ‘coconut tree’ and ‘brat.’ Harris has also done very well on TikTok, which is something Joe Biden’s campaign couldn’t do. But is the Walz pick indicative of a campaign that is too online?” • Assuming that the Harris campaign is using the model of picking up 100,000 votes in the swing states — but maybe not? A strike against Shapiro — are there enough extremely online voters out there to be swayed by the memes and meet that target? (NOTE TikTok youth might influence parents, as with Obama in the 2008 Democrat primary.)
* * * Kamala (D): “Gov. Tim Walz doesn’t own a single stock” [Axios]. “Walz doesn’t own a single stock, according to financial disclosures and confirmed by a spokesperson. Same goes for his wife Gwen, per tax filings. His disclosures, both from his final year in Congress and his time as Minnesota governor, also show no mutual funds, bonds, private equities, or other securities. No book deals or speaking fees or crypto or racehorse interests. Not even real estate. The couple sold their Mankato, Minnesota, home after moving into the governor’s mansion, for below the $315k asking price). Their only investment assets appear to be via state pensions, including teacher pensions. This lack of investment is highly unusual for elected officials. Particularly high-profile ones vying for federal office.” • Maybe Pelosi can give him some insider stock tips (i.e., Walz’s personal virtue in this regard is not relevant compared to the real issue: the systemic cesspit that is the Beltway, which is bipartisan). It’s Third World political thinking to imagine that “good people” in positions of authority will solve systemic corruption (“If men were angels…”).
Kamala (D): Counter-oppo:
Fun fact: when he was president, Donald Trump appointed then-Governor Tim Walz to his national Council of Governors.
It’s going to be pretty hard for Republicans to call this guy “extreme.” pic.twitter.com/H6fnQu1Q2z
— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) August 7, 2024
(Given that the account is a Democrat strategist, the original. –Lambert the Careful.)
Kamala (D): “Tim Walz’s China Connection Explained” [Newsweek]. “In 1989, Walz earned a B.S. in social science education from Chadron State College in his native Nebraska. According to the Lincoln Journal Star, Walz also took classes in East Asia Studies at the University of Houston in 1985. Following his graduation, the Minnesota governor and former Congressman spent approximately one year teaching high school in China as part of Harvard University’s WorldTeach program. Walz was among the first government-sanctioned groups of American educators to teach in China.” • Good, right? Unless there’s oppo in the backstory?
Kamala (D): “Republicans Resurface Tim Walz’ 1995 Mugshot as Attacks Heat Up” [Daily Beast]. • I’ll say again here what I said in Links: “If the DUI led to sobriety, which it seems to have done, then I don’t see an issue. A.A. says: ‘There but for the grace of God go I.'” (Of course, if Walz was running on a “Never touched a drop of liquor” platform, that would be different. Now, there are technical issues here: Presumably this came up in Holder’s vetting? And was considered and dismissed? If not, bad staffwork by the Harris campaign.
* * * Kamala (D): “Why Liberal Jews Are Right to Feel Worried About Kamala Harris Bypassing Josh Shapiro” [Hollywood Reporter]. “Across Hollywood and beyond, liberal Jewish-Americans today feel a sense of unease. I don’t claim to speak for anyone but myself. But my thoughts seem to be echoed among the solidly liberal Jewish-American producers, agents and executives I’ve talked to – namely, that even if the pick was the result of electoral calculations, those calculations come with baked-in antisemitic assumptions about the electorate. Harris has drawn the support of a large number of Democrats in Hollywood who identify as Jewish, from Jeffrey Katzenberg to J.J. Abrams to Barbra Streisand. That won’t change. But it comes with a tinge now. As one producer I spoke to said, ‘Of course I’ll stay on the train – Walz seems like a good dude. I just keep asking why it isn’t a Shapiro train.'”
* * * Trump (R): “Arizona Republican becomes first fake elector to plead guilty for role in Trump scheme” [Politico]. “An Arizona Republican who falsely claimed to be a legitimate presidential elector for Donald Trump — part of a sweeping effort by Trump and his allies to subvert the 2020 election — has pleaded guilty for her role in the scheme. Lorraine Pellegrino, one of 11 Arizona Republicans who falsely posed as Trump’s electors that year, accepted a guilty plea to a single charge for filing a “false instrument” — the fraudulent Electoral College certificate. The state charge was one of several she faced for allegedly joining in a conspiracy to corrupt Arizona’s election results. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes charged the 11 fake electors, as well as several top Trump allies, in a broad indictment in April. Trump himself was not charged in the Arizona case, but he was identified by a state grand jury as an unindicted coconspirator. Trump was also charged federally and in Georgia with felonies arising from his fake elector scheme and other efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. Pellegrino’s plea deal is the second victory in the Arizona case in as many days for Mayes, a Democrat. Another one of the 18 defendants, former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, began cooperating with prosecutors this week in exchange for a deal to dismiss the charges she faced. Ellis similarly cooperated with prosecutors last year in the Georgia case.” • I’ll say again: Of all the lawfare, the elector cases are the only cases with the potential to hole the Trump campaign below the waterline. Why? Because unlike the business records and classified documents cases, the elector cases affect civilians: dull normals who signed up because they believe the theory of the case that was put to them.
Trump (R): “Google Admits to Omitting Trump Assassination Attempt from Search Autocomplete Feature” [National Review]. “Alphabet Inc.’s counsel informed the House Judiciary Committee that bugs in Google’s autocomplete tool prevented it from predicting searches about the attempt on Trump’s life. The built-in protections that Google installed for searches related to political violence were ‘out of date,’ the attorney said, and prevented the search autocomplete feature from generating results on the assassination attempt against Trump three weeks ago. Google’s autocomplete feature experienced similar issues when users searched for ‘President Donald’ and related search terms. The attorney said the bugs were fixed after they were brought to Google’s attention. Google also claimed that an algorithmic error was responsible for broadcasting news stories about Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s 2024 rival, when users searched Trump’s name.” • So even granting Google’s “the algorithm ate my homework” excuse, it seems that autocomplete can’t handle current events; that is, when people need Google to work the most, it functions worst. So perhaps we should turn off autocomplete for the duration of the election? Or altogther? NOTE If Google can’t manage autocomplete, is there any reason to imagine it can manage AI?
* * * MO: “Bush’s loss raises questions for progressives: 5 takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries” [The Hill]. “[Cori] Bush’s primary loss was also the latest victory for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobbying organization that has increasingly flexed its muscles in primaries over the last couple of years. AIPAC’s super PAC spent big to unseat her in the primary, reportedly throwing more than $8 million into the race. The group had also spent millions to elevate Westchester County Executive George Latimer in the race for Bowman’s seat in New York’s 16th Congressional District, fueling progressive outrage. The group’s opposition to Bush came in response to her vocal criticism of Israel’s war against Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist organization ruling Gaza. She was one of just a few House members who opposed a resolution that expressed support for Israel last year, and when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress last month, Bush called it ‘sickening that Congress gave him a standing ovation.’ As Bowman was unseated, Bush called AIPAC a ‘threat to Democracy’ and accused the group of working to ‘silence the voices of progress and justice.'” • Unfortunate. We need more Senators who slept out of their cars. Looks like Mearsheimer’s “Israel Lobby” thesis (PDF, worth a read) is correct. (I’d speculate that the “Israel Lobby” thesis could be integrated into Ferguson et alia’s “investment theory of party competition” with Israel being an especially large, albieit offshore, industry.
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!
Maskstravaganza
Donning a 3M respirator (though the same principles apply to other respirators):
I’ve made a video on how to put on an effective mask to better prevent Covid infections after hearing about David Lynch
This does not constitute medical advice, and look into fit testing with your assistants if you want extra security
However this has worked for me pic.twitter.com/95tQ2j52X8
— AJ Leonardi, MBBS, PhD (@fitterhappierAJ) August 6, 2024
“Experts urge people to mask up as Southern California sees COVID-19 surge” [Mercury News]. The deck: “This new variant, KP.3.1.1, is causing a surge in infections, including among those who have previously avoided the virus.” Toward the bottom: “‘It’s in the virus’s interest to become more infectious and to dodge some of the vaccine immunity that we have out there’ Dr. Kimberly Shriner, medical director of infection prevention at Huntington Health, said in a phone interview last week. ‘So, as much as everybody wants the COVID pandemic to be over, it really isn’t over.’ At the time of the interview, there were 16 COVID-19 patients at the hospital, Shriner said. ;And the thing that kind of scares the heck out of me is the idea of long COVID, because that’s bad, and it’s not uncommon. It’s about 10 percent of people, especially people who’ve had it multiple times,’ she said. While the current situation is not ‘a time for alarm’, it is a call to action, [Dr. Matt Feaster, division manager of Epidemiology and Disease Control in the Pasadena Public Health Department] said. ‘It’s not atypical for us to see increases over the summer when people are traveling and increases in social mixing and other things that increase our risk for SARS transmission,’ Feaster said. ‘But certainly, this is a time for us to reflect on our risk and think about what we can do to prevent transmission.'” • “Reflect.” That’s certainly been working well so far.
Elite Maleficence
“Fewer Americans now view childhood vaccines as important: Gallup” [The Hill]. “In the July survey, only 40 percent of U.S. adults said it is ‘extremely important’ for parents to vaccinate their children, a marked decline from the 58 percent who said the same in 2019 and the 64 percent who said the same in 2001.” • Hat tip to the public health establishment for the 2019–2024 collapse to the public health establishment!
Mandy is, of course, modeling good masking — Oh, who am I kidding?
Why pretend Covid is a seasonal winter virus when 1 million Americans are getting infected today?
The updated vax is late because flu data suggest "a typical start, later in the October timeframe" for boosting precautions.
CDC today:https://t.co/AyT5utM0BW
h/t @DrJudyStone pic.twitter.com/b0rczWHXVf— Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA (@michael_hoerger) August 6, 2024
A short clip, worth listening to for the idiocy. This answers “Why pretend?”:
They have said it's not seasonal recently and even highlighted some points to that effect in passing earlier in the presentation. Then, she defers to southern hemisphere flu data over CDC Covid wastewater surveillance data. Difficult to follow.
— Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA (@michael_hoerger) August 6, 2024
And more idiocy. (I’ve urged for some time that since CDC has an institutional structure for seasonal flu already in place, they have force-fit Covid — including vaccination releases — into that structure, even though Covid is not seasonal. I mean, when did the now ubiquitous “summer cold” become a thing?)
| Wastewater | ||
| This week[1] CDC July 29: | Last Week[2] CDC July 22 (until next week): | |
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| Variants [3] CDC August 3 | ★ Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC July 27 | |
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| Hospitalization | ||
| New York[5] New York State, data August 5: | National [6] CDC July 13: | |
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| Positivity | ||
| National[7] Walgreens August 5: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic July 27: | |
rf
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| Travelers Data | ||
| Positivity[9] CDC July 15: | Variants[10] CDC July 15: | |
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| Deaths | ||
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC July 27: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC July 27: | |
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LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Keeps spreading.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular.
[4] (ER) Worth noting Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Leveling off. Doesn’t need to be a permanent thing, of course. (The New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and then around the country through air travel.)
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.
[7] (Walgreens) An optimist would see a peak.
[8] (Cleveland) Slowing. Comment on the Cleveland Clinic:
Why is the Cleveland Clinic building a new facility for a professional basketball team? These hospitals are not 'nonprofits' they are ridiculously profitable monopolies with an endless cash gusher to point at whatever they want. https://t.co/1REM2LMLjd
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 29, 2024
Ka-ching.
[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 rasnge. 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) Same deal. Those sh*theads.
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
There are no official statistics of interest today.
Shipping: “Shipping magnates are ploughing their big profits in recent years into new investments, but not necessarily on the water” [Logistics Report, Wall Street Journal]. “Many are buying up news outlets, real estate and even soccer clubs, the WSJ’s Costas Paris reports, in a sign of the flood of cash that has poured into the sector since the global Covid pandemic and recent disruptions at the Suez Canal. The earnings of the world’s top 10 container lines more than quadrupled in 2021 and 2022 to an average of $158 billion a year. Shipping owners often go on buying sprees when they are flush with cash, typically investing in modernizing their fleets. But a rush of orders raises the specter of a surplus of oceangoing capacity, prompting some shipowners to diversify their holdings.”
The Economy: “In the data that matters most, so far it’s a slowdown, not recession” [Axios Macro]. “The National Bureau of Economic Research’s business cycle dating committee is the official arbiter of when economic expansions stop and recessions begin. The group waits until ‘sufficient data’ is available before making the call to avoid any backtracking. That means the official recession call won’t come until after it has already begun or — in the case of the pandemic recession — until it is already over. The committee puts the most weight on two indicators. The first is payrolls, which show the economy is still adding jobs, though at a slower clip. On average, 274,000 jobs per month were added in the second quarter of 2023. That cooled to 168,000 last quarter, a still-healthy rate of job gains. The NBER’s second major recession indicator is real personal income growth excluding transfers (that is, adjusted for inflation and excluding income from government programs like Social Security and unemployment benefits). That has been positive in six of the last eight months, notching a 0.4% rise in May and 0.1% in June. It has, however, decelerated from last year’s breakneck pace. It rose a whopping 0.8% in Q1 2023 and 0.2% in the second quarter of this year. Two other indicators emphasized by the committee show activity is still growing. Consumer spending is rising. Real spending increased 0.6% in the most recent quarter — above the 0.2% seen in the same period a year ago.”
The Bezzle: “The Real Wolf of Wall Street Sales Script” [The Follow Up]. “And at last, we have the secret weapon: ‘Fair enough?’ This is one of the most powerful words in selling. Chris Voss (hostage negotiator) has said ‘fair’ is the ‘single most powerful word in any negotiation.’ It worked in sales back then and still works in sales today.” • News you can use!
Tech: “Where Facebook’s AI Slop Comes From” (excerpt) [404 Media]. The deck: “Facebook itself is paying creators in India, Vietnam, and the Philippines for bizarre AI spam that they are learning to make from YouTube influencers and guides sold on Telegram.” And: “He scrolls through the page, titled ‘Anita Kumari,’ which has 112,000 followers and almost exclusively posts images of emaciated, AI-generated people, natural disasters, and starving children. He pauses on another image of a man being eaten by bugs. ‘They are getting so many likes,’ he says. ‘They got 700 likes within 2-4 hours. They must have earned $100 from just this one photo. Facebook now pays you $100 for 1,000 likes … you must be wondering where you can get these images from. Don’t worry. I’ll show you how to create images with the help of AI.'” • Don’t worry….
Manufacturing: “Boeing Starliner Update: NASA Considers Tapping SpaceX to Bring Astronauts Home” [Newsweek]. “NASA is considering partnering with SpaceX to bring its astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, back home due to ongoing concerns about Boeing’s Starliner capsule — despite Boeing’s assurance that the spacecraft is capable of the task. In a call with reporters Wednesday, Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said that mission control has still not determined a return date for the crew and confirmed the space agency is exploring the use of SpaceX’s Crew-9 Dragon as a backup plan. ‘Our primary option is to return Butch and Sunny on Starliner. However, we have done the requisite planning to ensure we have other options open. We have been working with SpaceX to ensure they are ready to respond with Crew-9 as a contingency,’ said Stich.” • Oh.
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 24 Exreme Fear (previous close: 20 Extreme Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 54 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Aug 7 at 12:56:04 PM ET.
Groves of Academe
A parody account, except not:
Please see the list of approved vendors owned or operated by a spouse of the college’s senior leadership.
— Associate Deans (@ass_deans) August 7, 2024
“Operating theaters, bowling alleys and home cinemas: Not happy with safe rooms, the super-rich are building luxury fortresses” [CNN]. “Few things appear to soothe the existential anxieties of the super-rich like a bunker designed to withstand anything short of total nuclear Armageddon. Yet it’s no longer enough for the security-conscious billionaire to stick an impenetrable safe room in the basement where it might sit empty forever. In today’s uber-prime properties, bunkers have gone seriously upmarket and hi-tech, in some cases growing to the extent that whole homes are becoming 21st century fortresses. ‘We’ve seen a lot more of a focus on entertainment,’ said Al Corbi, who has been at the forefront of secure luxury for 50 years as the president and founder of SAFE (Strategically Armored & Fortified Environments), based in Virginia, in the US. ‘If you’re going to be able to survive underground, we want you to be having fun.'” • Good idea! But why stop at digital?
News of the Wired
“Chemical ‘waves’ used to encode words as Morse code” [Chemistry World]. “The chemical waves were generated in traditional round bottom flasks with reactants mixed by a magnetic stirring plate. ‘When all of the reactants had been added, the chemical waves began,’ says Howlett. ‘This was monitored by manually taking regular samples and measuring the chemical concentrations by liquid chromatography. A plot of these chemical concentrations shows waves and these waves were assigned meaning, such as a letter.’ The scientists managed to communicate using recognisable formats such as Morse code and nucleic acid sequences. To encode a word in Morse code, they carried out a single, continuous reaction where oscillating waveforms were produced over multiple hours. ‘We initially found reaction conditions which produced two distinct wave types and ran a chemical reaction where we switched between these conditions with precise timing,’ explains Howlett. ‘Measuring the chemical concentrations produced a pattern of waves which could be translated by Morse code into a word.’ In a similar experiment, they simulated RNA-like instructions, assigning each waveform to a nucleobase. ‘This demonstrates that with access to a wide range of waveforms, you can encode much higher levels of information,’ says Howlett.” • Hmm. I wonder if something out there is already trying to send us a message using a similar approach. Mayhe the Orcas? “… – — .–. -.-.– -.-.– -.-.–”
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 Carla:
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Walz’s lack of net worth is the best thing I’ve heard about him
Or is it lack of net worth in his name?
Now THAT’S a politician that can relate to the average American.
If he was to say:”I feel your pain.”, by God I might believe him.
Useless Eater: Agreed. It is good news in the sense that he understands the economic anxieties of the middle and working classes.
But if his foreign policy is the same old, same old, and we have no reason to think that he will break with Biden and Harris on Palestine and Ukraine (and China, even if he knows twelve words of Putonghua), it makes no difference how many boxes of PopTarts he trots out.
And he will be thoroughly boxed in with regard to foreign policy by the likes of Harris, Biden (if Joe remembers), Blinken, and Sullivan.
I’d like to see his wife’s financials before I’m convinced.
The article says “same goes for his wife” per tax returns, but yes, good to confirm for both.
> But if his foreign policy is the same old, same old, and we have no reason to think that he will break with Biden and Harris on Palestine and Ukraine (and China, even if he knows twelve words of Putonghua), it makes no difference how many boxes of PopTarts he trots out.
Think of it like a thermometer. They’re all bad. What I’d like is something above the freezing point, but that’s not on offer. Still, -10°F is “better” than -50°F. That is a “difference.” Whether it’s “a difference that makes a difference,” well, that’s another question entirely.
Any indications that Walz could have a Cheney-level influence on imperial war policy? He’s the bucket of wam Upper Midwestern spit to the Kamel being led at the head of the parade. So it’s silly to think fundamentally anything will change.
Also, anyone else notice multiple references the the Dem clique as “the Walz-Harris ticket”? Granted is does scan better and roll off the tongue easier than the reverse.
And it’s amazing to me, the degree to which the self-propelled grandfather has been ghosted. There’s nothing left of all the stuff I learned in grade school, high school and college about civics and the virtues and properties of Our Democracy ™. What do we tell the children, any more? “Learn to AI?”
> the degree to which the self-propelled grandfather has been ghosted
I love the phrase “self-propelled grandfather”, but I don’t understand what you mean
British army, if a soldier “ducked” deployment his contemporaries sent their greeting cards with a white feather glued on.
Is it too late for thousands to be sent to Walz.
Running for congress is so brave.
>British army, if a soldier “ducked” deployment his contemporaries sent their greeting cards with a white feather glued on.
Would they have called him ” No Ballz Walz”?
“Four Feathers” by A.E.W. Mason is the story of a British army officer who didn’t want to fight in the Sudan after General Gordon was killed and received three feathers from his unit friends and the fourth from his fiancee. Spends the rest of the book going to the Sudan, getting a brand on his forehead, rescuing his army friends all to give back the feathers.
Will he stay that way? I think I remember something similar about a former governor of Arkansas. Things dodn’t stay that way for long…
Easy. Times are tough. They had to shutdown their (illegal) private restaurant atop the Clinton Foundation. Or maybe they just got anxious about that looming (7 years?) IRS audit.
In this country, at this time, the lack of evidence of greed is, to my mind, an unalloyed good.
Having been regaled ad nauseam with walz’s gubernatorial mensch-ness as demonstrated by getting paid medical and family leave “done,” I have become very curious about the program.
First, the program has not begun, and won’t until January 1, 2026.
Here is a handy “fast fact” sheet that gives details of eligibility, payment calculation, program funding etc. Employers and employees will contribute through payroll withholding with the same earnings limits as social security. Until the program is funded, expenses will be paid from the general fund. The article is dated May, 2023. The total payroll deduction is 0.7%, split evenly between employer and employee.
Apparently in May of this year, the MN legislature (dem controlled) has already expanded the program, which will require a 37% tax increase (to a program that won’t even start for a year and a half) in 2027, when 0.7% becomes 0.96%.
It would seem that all the Minnesotans that love, love, LOVE walz have not gotten the bill for his generosity yet. As the author of the second article concludes:
I mean it’s not like we’d say “no” to ukraine or israel or anyone else we support in order to have some of these promised programs or keep them solvent, but they sure sound good on the campaign trail.
Well, in MN they have to come up with the money to fund all this; At the federal level, goodies really are free, at least if you ignore resource constraints. In practice spending must be allocated to social goals. Sadly, the elite fund themselves for their benefit, and their goals are antisocial. Oops.
Finally, a true liberal!!!
What’s amusing is at least reading the NY Times before the selection, who Kamala “vibed” with according to the latest headline I saw, was a key criteria in the selection. As Lambert said, it really is high school. Our liberal Democrats, everyone!
It can mean many things. Not all of them are good. I’m reserving judgement.
More Marcotte:
“‘Thank you for bringing back the joy,’ Walz said, to a thunderous reception. A simple line, but it brought the house down because of the plain-spoken truth Walz has swiftly become famous for. ‘Joy’ was the word of the night.”
This is the perfect evidence that the Democrats are mush-brained liberals who truly don’t want to govern.
As someone who grew up in the Great Lakes States, I can assure that the word the rest of us associate with Minnesota is “joy.”
And jell-o molds.
Just as we associate “heartland of America” with Indiana. The poor darlings have to have something besides Pete Buttigieg.
The Democrats somehow don’t understand will to power. They truly don’t want to govern. They want to have mood swings and make s’mores. It is no wonder that the Democratic Party is (1) the place where social movements go to die (and I note that AIPAC seems to have singled out black members of Congress Cori Brown and Jamaal Bush, hmmm, nothing seriously racial there, no siree bob) and (2) is dominated by rapacious bottom-feeders like the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, and Debby Wasserman-Schultz. It truly wouldn’t take much to show up Tartuffian social climber Josh Hawley, but the Democrats aren’t capable of it.
So the wars will continue in Ukraine, Palestine, and (soon) China, even as the Democrats are soiling the pantaloons with joy (!).
Sic transit gloria mundi.
I’ll always and forever associate Minnesota with Prince, Mary Tyler Moore, Garrison Keillor and that most beautiful of roads that goes through International Falls and up into the sublime landscape that is Lake of the Woods.
Minnesota is an awesome place. Above average.
Husker Du, Coen Bros, Replacements, Robert Mondavi…
Sinclair Lewis,Thorsten Veblen, Michael Hudson
Lifter Puller, Judy Garland, Bob Dylan.
> Garrison Keillor
Jean Redpath & Garrison Keillor: “Tuna, the Food of My Soul”
This so gorgeous it brings tears to my eyes (really) but then there are the lyrics (a version, not an exact match):
Politically — because you knew I’d get around to that — I think certainly The Great State of Minnesota derives a halo effect from Prairie Home Companion (at least for PMC and PMC manqué of a certain age, like me), and whether Walz derives a similar halo effect is an interesting question.
i too have a real soft spot for Prairie Home Companion…introduced Wifeto it when we were making these enormous square pizzas from scratch for the movie theater in town…this is before i was talked in to opening on friday and saturday nights(which i should have resisted,btw)…so we’d be up there at the cafe, alone…waiting for the pizza dough to finish rising, and i’d turn that on…’what the hell are we listening to?!”, she said the 1st time.
but she soon fell in love with it…cant get much more late stage Americana than that.
and i, too, like IMdoc, below, will never forgive how they cancelled him.
and it’s now pretty clear, that just about anything can make me weep,lol…
Darn, I am sad for Prairie Home Companion, again.
Proof, I think, that NPR and PBS were deliberately destroyed.
In way late, but by himself, Garrison Keillor and PHC made Minnesota the most above average state of all.
My permanent divorce from NPR came the day I read how they handled Garrison Keillor.
Mine came with Bob Edwards, but the handling of Keillor confirmed it.
When you say NPR, do you really mean public radio in general? Although Prairie Home Companion was carried by many NPR stations, it was not produced or distributed by NPR, and NPR as an organization had no role in his defenestration. That was done by Minnesota Public Radio.
John Ireland and Alexis Toth, and the birth of the Orthodox Church of America.
Agreed, MN is awesome. Not sure aboot Walz, but time to do some reading on him.
In the meantime, here’s a little musical interlude with a small group from MN:
Artist: Humbird featuring Rachel Ries and the Kith+Kin choir (who doesn’t enjoy a choir?)
Song: Song for the Seeds
https://youtu.be/4reEE3r47LY?si=vl6vWUu6vhlltTjs
I like that she hand packs some seed packets and gives them out for free at her merch table.
Am I the only person who immediately thought of “Strength through Joy” (KdF in German) when KamaWalzen gang were trying to meme “joy”? There is really somethibg cringey about the memes they throw about…
JOY PREVAILS!
doesnt a guy named joy, or something, run the damned nonfunctioning post office, still?
or is it de joy?
like deeznutz?
It’s like a repeat of the clintonian malarkey “love trumps hate”
Sitting in Gerald R Ford/Grand Rapids, Mi. airport, waiting for our flight. I see no other masks besides ours…
@ 1 million new infections per day and assuming that infected people are infectious for (pulling a number out of the distal end of my alimentary canal) 5 days, that would imply that, currently, ~ 1 in 70 USians is infectious.
One is guaranteed to cross paths with spreaders while going about “life as normal”.
Stay safe!
Yesterday Hoerger posted:
https://x.com/michael_hoerger/status/1820692102080045315
—–
Today he reposted:
Co-worker of mine was on a zoom call yesterday with a “bad cold.” They were in the office. Too sick to work today. Counting down the days until everyone who was on the floor with them goes down. And the owner of the boarding kennel where they picked up their dog on Monday…and the crew at the restaurant where their kid is working for the summer.
By my count this is their 4th infection.
I guess the ventilation can’t be good….
It’s not terrible, but the people who go into the office on a regular basis are also damn fool enough to sit in a room with someone who is obviously ill for long periods of time. Something I refused to do even in the before times.
Lambert! Hoping to catch you at the “orts and scraps” phase … ;-)
Quick yes or no question:
Has anything changed with the method for #2PMWC check donation?
Thanks! Don’t want to be a Joey Bait Switch and end up short by a few bucks!
No, everything is the same. Nice timing.
Thank you!
I get that they need to go after Trump with everything they got but the whole concept of a “false instrument” is as insidious as the notion of a “false claim,” or “misinformation.” Like many of the post-2020 legal neologisms, this one is openly flirting with antinomian mendacity. There is no such thing as a “false instrument” in legal or practical terms. There are forged/fraudulent instruments and there are invalid instruments but what, exactly, is a false instrument? If someone, in good faith, believed that the tabulated results were illegitimate, and based their certification off that, then it would simply be certification that, when submitted, would have been rejected by the Secretary of State in accordance with internal policy for being invalid. To the extent that a mens rea element has been established, it appears to have been based on the reverse-causality logic of: competing certification = X, final certification = Y, X not Y, therefore… intent to deceive.
While all criminal defendants are at the mercy of the jury’s verdict regarding requisite intent, the fact that the prosecution bears the burden of proof to establish a prima facie case gives defendants some form protection. Unless the defendant in this case made some sort of admission to genuinely believing the tabulated results were accurate, I can’t imagine why she would have taken the plea deal. No one is obligated to believe the tabulation machines (nor should they) and all she had to do was testify that she genuinely thought they were inaccurate and let the prosecution try to argue “no she didn’t.”
In any case, the minimal lawfare goal here appears to be to establish a chilling effect, with the ultimate goal of turning the act of questioning the tabulation machines into a felony. That is to say, to short-circuit the traditional American ballot box competition formula that reigned from 1800 – 2016 (which involved a fair bit of cheating that was, in its own way, neutral, in that it gave both sides room to both stuff and contest) into a black-box number generator game in which victory is determined by whichever party holds the Secretary of State position at the state capital.
A diligent observer of the current state-capital political landscape could probably figure out exactly how the election is going to go right now based on which states still use hand counted ballots at the precinct level vs. analog vs. digital tabulation.
Although, caveat, might not be as easy as it looks given that the Dems are going to have find a number that is both above Trump’s in the swing districts but not so far above his as to draw attention to the exit polls. That is, they will need to be at least a bit clever as they can’t, as of now, rely on the same 3 am delivery of “stored mail-in ballots” that they did last time (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
> “false instrument”
Interesting. Can any other legal beagles comment? (Personally, I don’t see an issue, at the individual level, with “contingent electors,” used by both parties, IIRC. I do have a very much IIRC memory that the “deal” struck with some contingent electors for the use of their ballots was not honored by higher-ups in the campaign, which is how the civilians got caught up in the moving machinery. But I didn’t have time to research that, so it didn’t go in.)
Mr Richard’s explanation/theory sounds good, to me…altho Ianal,etc.
but i do study such things, and have forever.(would that we could still “Read the Law”, like Lincoln did,lol)
it reminds me, in fact, of the Marihuana Stamp Act…where you were damned if you were in possession, but didnt have a stamp, but couldnt get a stamp unless you already were in possession of the taxed substance(marihuana) and were thus damned for possession.
in this case, its really more of the war on the First Amendment…which, while not set out in stone, strongly implies a Right to Form ones own opinion on things…whether the State likes it or not.
The electoral college electors are the slate of the state-certified winner of the election. These electors then certify the election with certificates submitted to the National Archives and Congress. The people being prosecuted for submitting “false” documents – whatever they “genuinely thought” – are not those electors. They are people who got together and signed some documents. In Arizona they used the state seal without authorization and attempted to submit the documents to the National Archives and Congress.
OMG!!! What greatest country evah in the history of the planet could withstand such a grievous assault?????
Lock ’em up and throw away the key!!!!
Maybe more evidence that there are things seriously wrong with our electoral process, even assuming that these people were of mistaken belief that they were “somebodies” (or rather, especially if they thought they were “somebodies”)?
As has become usual in the past generation, the very first time I ever heard the word “faithless electors” was from the mouth of Hillary Clinton doing her best to undermine the Trump election. That was her first salvo in repeated statements over the years that he was “illegitimate”. The entire thing is actually a total farce. The fact that any of these people on one side are facing any kind of jail time after years of Russia Russia Russia is not a farce but a tragedy. As a Dem, it makes me absolutely furious that the party is seeing this type of thing through – but has failed to do anything about multiple issues they have supposedly supported for years.
Is that the actual order of events? From what I pieced together, the false certifications still had to go through the sec of state, who, in any normal situation, would have laughed at them and ignored them before singing off on the correct certifications and forwarding them to whoever in DC.
But if the false certifications were sent directly to DC, that’s even more laughable of a crime because even with the state seal, there was still zero chance they could have been interpreted or mistaken as the real thing as they wouldn’t have come from the Secretary of State’s office. Unless Arizona a is unique, state seals are in the public domain and you could throw them on any doc you want. Doesn’t make it a government document and doesn’t make it fraud unless you’re forging the signature of someone specific and trying to pass a fake off as the real thing, which doesn’t appear to be the case here at all. The judicial branch analogy would be the amicus curae, which is a formal way of bringing what in strict judicial terms are non-legal arguments, but you’d be hard pressed to find a judge issuing sanctions to amicus parties for submitting frivolous arguments.
But to IMDoc’s point. This whole strategy was initially trial ballooned by Hillary 08. The mendacity here is thick.
According to the Wikipedia summary:
“On the same day that the true electors voted, at the direction of Trump campaign officials, “alternate slates” of Republican electors convened in seven states…In each case the false electors signed a facsimile of an Electoral College certificate of ascertainment, proclaiming Trump and Pence the victors, and sent it to the National Archives and to Congress.”
The article has descriptions of activities in different states and reference links for more detail
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot
The WA fine of the 2016 faithless electors was upheld, and a lawsuit by Colorado faithless electors was rejected by SCOTUS. The court held “that a State may “penalize an elector for breaking his pledge and voting for someone other than the presidential candidate who won his State’s popular vote.”
https://ask.loc.gov/law/faq/331082
Yes, efforts by Democrats to interfere with and delegitimize elections are despicable.
Could try to establish mentality by statements prior to the certification that the entire process is fraudulent. So if the elector says prior to election that system is fraudulent, and then submits same without specific verifiable reasons why, then elector was committing fraud due to intent to undermine election without verifiable reason to do so.
I am a lawyer, but this is not my practice.
I have just added orts and scraps, and they are distributed everywhere, so please scroll about, if you have the time. I hope to regress the Kamala/Trump imbalance soon, but (a) Trump had better start dominating a news cycle or two, and (b) there’s a lot of fascinating technical stuff going on in the Harris campaign anyhow. Be sure to read the Morning Consult and Enten pieces on Walz.
“Operating theaters, bowling alleys and home cinemas: Not happy with safe rooms, the super-rich are building luxury fortresses” [CNN]. “Few things appear to soothe the existential anxieties of the super-rich like a bunker designed to withstand anything short of total nuclear Armageddon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once upon a time Andrew Carnegie built over 2,500 libraries across the USA and around the world for everybody to use-instead of just 1 bunker, complete with appointed dungeon/entertainment area.
Film scenes from the initial Purge film are coming to mind. You need the best and latest security technology and yes, being able to barricade on site is a plus for your family safety.
Watching the updates on Debby however, well there’s little defense from unending buckets of rain falling in steady, high volume in low lying coastal regions. This storm is really a slow mover by many standards.
my favorite part of the early pandemic days was the memes of cement trucks backing up to rich people’s bunkers.
Don’t know how true this is, but I was told that as soon as a library was finished, Andrew Carnegie would have its shelves filled with cousin Dale’s, How to Win Fiends and Influence People.’ Something to do, I suppose, with erasing Homestead from all those other books.
Looks like Dale C. had published only one book prior to Andrew’s 1919 death, and it wasn’t one of his biggies.
You know, sometimes I think it’s polite to believe whatever I’m told. (Winking)
> The math behind why Harris picked Walz and why she may regret it
Big question is: Will the young and ‘extremely online voters out there to be swayed by the memes’ actually get out to vote?
The online voters aren’t the problem. They vote. The issue is always gotv. Youth voters tend to be transient versus older home owners.
Then there are voters where they won’t swing local races. Local politics is a actually q good draw, but if you can’t connect a vote to change, people don’t vote. Back during the 50 state strategy, people discussed openly hitting targets in the 36 independent cities on Virginia. On its own, turning Waynesboro from 55 to 65 blue may not seem like much, but when you add it to the gains in those cities across the state, the whole race things. Then even entrenched Republicans fall such as in VA’s 5th in 2008.
It’s the guy doing door dash, the person working on a masters program, and so forth who ate the problem relative to voting. The dancing memes will make the faithful happy, but those meme usually distract from organizing.
The other problem, at least when Biden was still running, was that Trump was doing far better with less likely voters than Biden–higher turnout, unlike in most years, would have been a disaster for the Dems. Does the Harris replacement change the picture along this dimension? That’s the 6 trillion dollar question, no?
Hot off the press on Taibbi’s substack, following up on the Tulsi Gabbard story. Non-paywalled.
https://www.racket.news/p/american-stasi-tulsi-gabbard-confirms
Just received this also. If it wasn’t Tulsi Gabbard’s personal account it would be hard to believe it is real.
Wow, that is scary. This country is so messed up. I want out.
yeah.
it aint just high profile dissent, either…nor is it new…like at all.
i was/am on a no fly list, from back in bush2/obamatimes, from…i assume…yelling at my employees.
(ie> congress…had a lot of time on my hands…and anger…due to being laid up, and all)
told to me by my own congressman’s staffer…who was apparently assigned to deal with me, due to my incessant calls about my 6.5 year wait for a frelling hip replacement.(i remain existentially angry about all that…one might say it “radicalised” me,lol)
then wife and i tried to book a flight to vera cruz…so as to go to cuba…and put it all on youtube(this is well before the fat dude(cant remember his name) made a film about this very thing)…and get a damned hip.
no dice…and the travel agent couldnt tell us why..a lot of hemming and hawing…
so i called up my congresscriminal’s office, spoke to my girl again…yep…yer on a no fly list.
this was all 2006-2013…altho i’d hafta look at records to figger out exactly when.
all one has to do to be on such a list…which i am fucking proud of!…is to bother people in power sufficiently.
more people should be doing exactly that.
because fuck them…they all operate under the assumption that they work for us….but platitudes and assertions are not proof.
Is the film you’re thinking about Michael Moore’s “Sicko” (from 2007)?
Sounds like this program is now a play thing of officials to use to harass people that they do not like. But what if an actual threat was missed because the available agents were tagged with going after a person like Tulsi Gabbard?
Thanks for this link, hk. Jesus, what a terrible place this country has become. We are right back in the 50’s Red Scare. What’s next?
Biden pulled out of the race on July 21 and Harris was confirmed as the nominee by the only people who matter on July 23. Gabbard, who flayed Harris alive in the 2020 primary “debate”, was placed on the SSSS list that same day, July 23.
A couple of sundry afternoon news items to anyone paying attention at this hour.
From NBC local (Delmar, NY) news (via TASS):
FBI agents search former US intelligence officer Ritter’s house
From LBCI:
Iran asks airlines to avoid its airspace: Report says
More specifically, two three hour periods were announced by Egyptian authorities:
Egypt instructs its airlines to avoid Iran’s airspace amid escalation with Israel
Regarding the FBl raid on Scott Ritter’s house, he comes out at 9:40 in the video and and give some details (so that the camera guys will leave, I presume). https://www.youtube.com/live/HQXqKJK3VW4
Like the way ‘Quiet Skies’ is used to harass Tulsi Gabbard, you have the FBI doing the same with Ritter and even the IRS is used occasionally on people that officials do not like.
This is normal. This is fine. I forget, who are we supposed to vote for because the other side is fascist?
I’ve managed to miss nearly all of the Olympics, but caught this gem of a performance in the Mens 1500 meter race, one of the most amazing finishes, where an unheralded American runner gets blocked out & loses momentum at the top of the stretch, only to somehow get going again and nips the wire ahead of everybody else, wow!
American Cole Hocker pulls off a STUNNER in men’s 1500m Olympic final | Paris Olympics | NBC Sports
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sb32uxUO10
came across this, from Mearsheimer…
https://www.unz.com/article/who-caused-the-ukraine-war/
a succinct and entirely reasonable summation of Russia’s POV…and while i applaud Mr Unz, as unpleasant as i find him personally, for providing such an open forum for literally all and sundry…it’s rather sad that such a reasonable summation is apparently only to be found there and on Mearsheimer’s own substack.
not, say, in the NYT or Wapo.
let alone Foreign Policy.
this narrative remembering is also, fwiw, how i remember this whole chain of events…from the “not one inch to the east”, until today…and bolstered by making a habit of reading Putin’s statements and speeches on the Kremlin English Service, starting with the Munich Speech.
Today’s RCP poll aggregation shows Harris leading Trump nationally. Huh.
Huh. Which of her stated policy goals do you think is the one that’s having the greatest effect?
Weird….
Headline: Jane Goodall Thinks It’s Not Too Late to Save the World
https://www.wired.com/story/wired-czechia-jane-goodall-q-and-a-conservation/
“The world, the famed primatologist says, isn’t what it used to be—but there’s still time to save it, if we treat crises like climate change, biodiversity loss, and poverty as one.”
Problem is, that’s exactly what we’re doing: treating climate change, biodiversity loss, and poverty as one big problem that doesn’t matter at all. Because greed. And as we all know, Greed Is Good.
regardless, she remains one of my favorite humans ever.
empowered me to survive junior high.
Jane Goodall is a great person — never meant otherwise.
We need several million more like her to overcome the several thousand psychopaths that are sinking the world.
Okay, I’m gonna tap the brakes just a bit and let’s find what the former coach and military serving Midwest nice guy is really about. I found something to chew on…not a parent myself but if someone in government thinks to be a net positive I just have questions.
Welcome to the national stage. And yeah, many parents who are not dyed in the wool Republicans or red hat wearing folks might find this , possibly, offensive.
https://www.house.mn.gov/sessiondaily/Story/17865
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/tim-walz-signed-bill-making-minnesota-a-sanctuary-state-for-child-sex-changes/
yeah…righty/libertardian/goptea/altright twitterverse is full of this atm…and also how him and Kamel are pinkocommies who want to eat your babies.
Was thinking about adding some context. I get that being a teenager and adolescence is a difficult time, but can they just push the brake instead of the accelerator?
I mean everyone struggles at some point…becoming strung out or medicated probably could have been my fate if I was born later than ’72 for example. Working hard to avoid an impoverished or deprived life was a definite impetus to aim high, yeah I know that sounds cliche… I did not want to remain where opportunity was fleeting.
After hearing about David Lynch
David Lynch, the acclaimed filmmaker behind works like “Eraserhead” and “Twin Peaks,” has been diagnosed with pulmonary emphysema. Legendary director David Lynch will likely retire from filmmaking due to health concerns that prevent him from leaving his Los Angeles home. He has confined himself to his home because he fears he could fall severely ill from Covid.
I believe the short run up to the election benefits Harris, the more one knows about her the less attractive she becomes.
Having Brandon resign and hand her the reins before September 1st might make the difference in a close race, but the value drops as the election approaches.
Joe has dementia, which likely makes the attempts to make a deal awkward.
Jim and Hunter would really like pardons along with some cash, if Joe is feeling pissy enough he might hang on until January 2nd and if Harris loses the election hand her the Presidency with 18 days to go….
Genocide Joe is a mean and resentful old man who cares nothing for the consequences of his actions, dear Hunter and Brother Jim may be SOL…
They, meaning many of the main media channels, will process all the gaslighting at their disposal. Biden was healthy and mentally sharp until he wasn’t. Harris has collected delegates but what exactly are her policy positions? What will be her approach on the economy, on the looking tax cuts expiring in a mere year +? We don’t know actually know. I figure she would possibly represent more of the same and continuing along a glide path set by the current administration.
If I were a billionaire donor like a Reid Hoffman, by example or a Mark Cuban, I would find such questions merely inconvenient. But alas I am not.
Nice of AJ Leonardi to mention those of us with boney faces. Wish he’d invited a colleague with hair to post a companion video.
And I wish elastic straps stuck to the hair! They slide all over the place! Have to use a hair clip, or bun or pony to keep the top strap in one place.
From WSJ:
“POKROVSK, Ukraine—Ukraine launched an armored incursion into Russia’s lightly defended Kursk region in a surprise move early Tuesday that caused panic among civilians and forced Moscow to rush in additional troops.
Russia evacuated villages near the border as hundreds of Ukrainian troops pressed forward in fast-moving armored vehicles, according to Russian officials. Russia deployed army units, border guards and warplanes to counter Ukrainian units and said Wednesday it had halted Ukrainian forces. Russian war bloggers close to the Russian military said Ukraine seized several villages and advanced several miles in two directions.”
Surprise attack on lightly defended territory. No one knows what it means, but it will be endlessly cited by the Kagen’s ISW as evidence to promote more war.
Saw a Monarch butterfly in the wild today.
“Politicians, like diapers, should be changed regularly and for the same reason.”
-Mark Twain (reminded of this today by a tweet by the Zodiac Motherfamilyblog account)
Let’s see what Harris and Walz do. Harris ascended to the nomination without entering a primary or holding a convention, and has yet to grant any interviews or discuss policy. She has the backing of media (except Fox), maybe that’s enough to win Biden’s second term.
As far as vetting… Both the DUI story and the “ducking out on deployment” angle on his retirement from the Guard were trotted out against Walz at the time of his initial congressional campaign, when both stories were a lot fresher than they are now.
Sellers, Kubrick, Southern. Pure genius. I could watch this once a month and still laugh out loud.
Sam Cohen, the inventor of the Neutron Bomb (for which he received a peace prize from the Pope) told me Dr. Strangelove was his favourite film. But he didn’t see it as a comedy. He had been down in the bunker with the Big Board, and thought Kubrick’s film a documentary.
“Google Admits to Omitting Trump Assassination Attempt from Search Autocomplete Feature”
Said this in a comment a few days ago. How if you put the words ‘assassination attempt on’ that Google will refuse to mention Trump’s name but gives a random list of ten other people instead. It’s amazing how often these “bugs” always seem to work in favour of those with power.
The Lebanese spouse of then-colleague of mine told a story (more than a decade and a half ago now) of how, when boarding planes, he always gets searched. (He’s a surgeon. The only reason anybody might be suspicious of him is that he’s an Arab named Mohammed) The agents always tell him that he’s been randomly chosen for the search. He’d just smile and nod.
I suppose people who really have had experiences like this just take it for granted that politicians lie, institutions are corrupt, and principles are meaningless. I’ll admit to having been deeply bothered by this, though.
“Why Liberal Jews Are Right to Feel Worried About Kamala Harris Bypassing Josh Shapiro (Opinion)”
Do they even listen to themselves? They are sad because during an ongoing genocide by Israel, that the Democrats did not pick a candidate that was in the IDF – a foreign military at that and not the US military – and are now worried what it means for them personally.
Maybe they’re just keeping their powder dry.
Just providing the reference:
Josh Shapiro Annoyed He Got This ‘Death To Israel’ Neck Tattoo For Nothing
As a devotee of Murray Rothbard, one of his 4 cloned dogs is named after him, he is a paleolibertarian.
The invasion of Russia by Ukraine seems to be getting a low-key treatment in the media. Maybe too much of a “man bites dog” story? The goal seems to be to get close enough to the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant to damage that with drones and artillery. Whether that’s the first step in a longer range plan or just a PR stunt is not clear. Another theory is that this is a distraction meant to misdirect Russia’s attention so Ukraine can again try to recapture (or destroy) the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. It does make it seem like Russia should have made a play for Sumy earlier on in the war to give itself a buffer against this kind of attack. I guess the brigades involved in this were among the ones Ukraine was staging on the Belarus border earlier this year. So they still have troops to spare for offensive operations, despite their big losses in the defensive struggle.
Amb. Chas Freeman on Scott Ritter – Is Israel on the Brink of TOTAL Defeat?! (Dialogue Works Youtube Channel)
So a continuation of the Biden eugenics project, which as I recall began before his election, even, when his campaign encouraged people to vote in person during the early primary as the initial stages of the Pandemic unfolded, and Sanders did not.
Seeing much vapid high-fiving on twix, as Kamala girl-bosses away anti-genocide hecklers during a speech in Detroit. Slay Queen!
https://x.com/keithboykin/status/1821339589035851950
Then again, one can’t talk about that phrase without recalling The Onion’s invocation of it a few days before George Bush, Jr’s first inauguration.