2:00PM Water Cooler 11/22/2024

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Bird Song of the Day

Northern Mockingbird, Damon-Garcia Sports Field, San Luis Obispo, California, United States.

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In Case You Might Miss…

1. Trump border czar beats chest..
2. Resistance 2.0 funders and NGOs
3. Mathematical thinking .

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Politics

“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

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Trump Transition

“Trump Border Czar: If Sanctuary Cities Do Not Assist, We Will Go Into The Community To Find Criminal Illegal Immigrants” (transcript) [Laura Ingraham, RealClearPolitics]. “Incoming Trump “Border Czar” and former acting director of ICE Tom Homan laid out his plan to deport illegal immigrants in an interview with FOX News host Laura Ingraham.” • Homan may indeed be an effective administrator, but there’s nothing in this chest-beating interview to prove it. Since “sanctuary cities” are an updated version of Calhoun’s nullification doctrine, I oppose the concept. But I’m gonna have to get my knee seen to, the way Ingraham and Homan are pounding on it.

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The “chaos” talking point, a hardy perennial:

“Trump’s daily chaos circus is already back in full force” [Aaron Rupar, Public Notice]. “Voters may have been willing to risk it all for slightly lower egg prices, but regardless of what they thought they were doing, they’re getting a chaos machine — and that sort of thing gets exhausting pretty quickly.”

“Chaos reigns supreme in Trump’s Washington” [Axios]. “Trump has achieved historic political success by following his instincts — and his instincts tend to favor maximum chaos…. If past is prologue, the pace of chaos is unlikely to relent even after Trump gets his Cabinet in place.”

Lambert here: Maybe I didn’t get the memo, but is there anything more chaotic than risking World War III by trying to achieve escalation dominance over a nuclear power, in their own back yard? And how about genocide? Is genocide chaotic or no? Anyhow—

“Playbook: What Trump learned from Gaetz-gate” [Politico]. “[E]ven Trump has his limits on drama. For years, the conventional wisdom around Trump is that he has a sweet tooth for chaos and that his appetite is bottomless as long as he ultimately gets the outcome he desires. But Gaetz-gate suggests that when that chaos becomes a distraction — or worse in his eyes, when it makes him look bad — he’s willing to cut bait and head home.” • And/or he’s listening to Susie Wiles.

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“‘I think Elon may get frustrated fairly quickly'” [Politico]. “‘I think Elon may get frustrated fairly quickly,’ Khanna said on today’s POLITICO Tech podcast. ‘I mean, let’s see if he can get defense cuts. My guess is that there are going to be a lot of the people on that committee [who] are going to want even more defense spending. It’ll be a test.’… Khanna represents a large swath of Silicon Valley and has known Musk for years. In a recent exchange on X, Musk’s social media platform, the pair appeared to agree that the Defense Department was spending too much money on large defense contractors. Khanna has previously voted against expanding the Pentagon’s budget.”

“Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tapped to work with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as new DOGE subcommittee chair” [CNBC]. “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has been tapped to lead a new House subcommittee that will work with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Greene and House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., have met with Ramaswamy and his team and are ‘already working together,’ a person familiar with the matter told CNBC on Thursday. Comer aims to establish the subpanel early next year, the source said. Greene’s group will be dubbed the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, allowing it to share the DOGE acronym with the outside-of-government entity commissioned by President-elect Donald Trump.” • MTG = Cover against/discipline from the base?

2024 Post Mortem

“Democrats Need Their Own Donald Trump” [RealClearPolitics]. “Perhaps the greatest indictment of Democrats’ competence is the rise of Donald Trump. After eight years of Barack Obama – an exemplar of well-polished progressivism – the American people elected a man with no government experience, whose campaign focused on the failures of the ruling elites of both parties. Entrenched Republicans were, in fact, as disdainful of Trump as Democrats were. Then, despite titanic efforts to undercut and delegitimize him at every turn, this quintessential outsider led a largely successful administration. Polls suggested he was likely to be reelected before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Trump was returned to office earlier this month because many Americans remembered the policies of the man Democrats dismissed as a failed real estate developer and superficial reality TV star as far more effective than those advanced by his highly credentialed opponents.” More: “All of which is to say, Democrats need their own Trump – a wrecking ball who will challenge the party’s dogmas; a disruptive outsider who can force them out of their ideological cul-de-sac. The radical transformation Democrats need seems beyond the capacity of the party’s entrenched leadership: To expect people who cannot admit error to change their minds and ways seems like wishful thinking. They probably don’t need a Trump-like figure to win elections, but they need one to find a way to govern effectively.” • The hour has produced the man: Gavin Newsom.

“Column: The Trump landslide that wasn’t” [Los Angeles Times]. “But as more of the popular vote is counted, it turns out that Trump’s victory came with the slimmest of margins — a few hundred thousand votes in key places slid him into office. The Cook Political Report, considered to be the expert on these things, has Kamala Harris earning 48.24% of the popular vote as of Wednesday, compared with 49.89% for Trump. That’s a difference of about 2.5 million votes out of about 155 million counted…. [Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the USC Price School of Public Policy] points out that Republicans also won control of both houses of Congress, which gives Trump a ‘trifecta, and its power.’ But Republicans did it with about 31% of eligible voters going for Trump. About 30% went for Harris. Though voter turnout was strong, an alarming 36% of eligible voters didn’t bother to cast a ballot, she said.” • A “landslide” election 2024 was not. Decisive, it was, at least at the presidential level. These days, 49.89 – 48.24 = 1.65% is decisive. So is winning all seven swing states. So is winning both houses of Congress. Even more important, the “coalition of the ascendant,” the identity-based strategy Democrats have been using since at least 2008, finally crashed and burned. Oh the bright side for Democrats, many of their candidates ran ahead of Harris, suggesting that the top of the ticket was indeed problematic _{MR SUBLIMINAL No duh!}. (At the non-Presidential level, “progressive” causes did well, and Democrats held on to all their governorships.)

“The Red Wave Didn’t Hit Statehouses in This Election” [The Nation]. “Democrats’s state power is shaping up to be the strongest counterweight to the Trump administration. When Donald Trump was first elected in 2016, there were just 29 Democratic legislative majorities in the states, and only six states had Democratic governing trifectas. That meant there were only so many opportunities for the states to quickly or effectively counter the damaging effects of MAGA federal policy. This time around, Democrats are in a much stronger position. Thanks to a decade of making investments and gains—including our 2024 wins—Democrats will hold nearly 40 majorities in our statehouses and are ready to combat the worst of the Trump presidency. We’ve also nearly tripled our number of governing trifectas to 15 states, including big blue powerhouses like New York, California, and Illinois with large populations and booming economies. Case in point: California alone is the fifth-largest economy in the world. That means state Democrats will have serious sway under a second Trump administration. If Trump goes full steam ahead on the many extreme and dangerous promises made during the campaign—including Project 2025—Democrats in state legislatures are ready to pump the brakes.” • And see below from the Washington Examiner on the “Governors Safeguarding Democracy” program.

Deploy the Blame Cannons!

“Throw the Groups Under the Bus!” [Ruy Teixeira, The Liberal Patriot]. “. The time, energy and resources spent on the Democrats’ cultural left agenda is time, energy, and resources taken away from promoting the economic welfare of the working class. Working-class voters are well aware of this tradeoff, even if progressive activists and ‘the Groups‘ are not. As a result, working-class voters tend to connect their economic criticisms of the Democrats to the party’s apparent preoccupation with cultural issues pushed by their liberal college-educated supporters—issues working class voters either don’t care about or are actively hostile to. This connection is clearly dragging the Democrats down with these voters.” More: “Democrats have lost the plot in the view of more and more nonwhite, especially nonwhite working-class, voters. How can they find it again? The obvious answer would be to sever the party’s connection to unpopular and unworkable social policies and re-establish a focus on the material welfare of working-class voters. The simplest way to do this, in turn, would be to forcefully denounce said policies and unambiguously break from the forces in the party that are pushing these policies—’the Groups’ and their allies that insist being a Democrat is inseparable from being a progressive as they define it. But this is hard because it entails conflict and conflict with the Groups is something Democrats have been determined to avoid. This is foolish, not least because the theory upon which this deference was based—that the Groups actually represented groups of voters—was incorrect.” • Oopsie.

“The End of Denial: How Trump’s rising popularity in New York (and everywhere else) exposed the Democratic Party’s break with reality” [New York Magazine]. “In truth, the MAGA faithful are not among the city’s upper-middle-class liberals in any meaningful way. Neighborhoods like Park Slope are some of the only ones in the city that remained dark blue this cycle. It was instead the areas of the city where some of the least wealthy and least white reside that broke hardest toward Trump. These neighborhoods, and the reasons they voted as they did, have been out of the field of vision of many of the very people, here in the country’s media capital, who have tasked themselves with reporting on, understanding, and explaining American politics. This myopia reflects a Democratic Party that in losing touch with such places is in danger of forgetting its reason for being.” • Not so. The Democrat Party is the party of the PMC. That is its reason for being, and the party has by no means forgotten that. (Another way of saying this is that the problems of the Democrat Party are the problems of the PMC itself, boiling down to a failure to deliver a humane, non-crapified baseline of services in every system where it handles governance, especially healthcare, but also education, human resources, etc.).

The #Resistance

“Billionaire Musk foe bankrolls second Trump resistance” [Washington Examiner]. A maze of NGOs: “Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay and a backer of progressive groups spearheading anti-Elon Musk campaigns, is behind a new initiative led by Democrats aiming to champion the second Trump resistance, records reveal. The initiative, called Governors Safeguarding Democracy, was profiled in the New York Times last week as a newly-formed vehicle for Govs. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL), Jared Polis (D-CO), and other governors to ‘protect the rule of law’ in states and push back on the policies of President-elect Donald Trump. On its website, GSD calls itself a “nonpartisan alliance” of leaders, though it is unclear what Republican officials, if any, are involved with the group. But, according to nonprofit donation software records, GSD is not technically a stand-alone organization. Rather, the Trump resistance operation is under the umbrella of a Governors Action Alliance project sponsored by Global Impact, a Virginia-based charity. In September, Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, a private foundation steering the left-wing billionaire’s fortune, routed $500,000 to the Governors Action Alliance to support ‘coordinating and strengthening the work of governors to address specific threats to American democracy,’ Democracy Fund’s grants database shows. Omidyar’s ties to the Trump resistance group, which operates under its parent umbrella alongside an effort called the Reproductive Freedom Alliance, is a window into how billionaire progressives are ramping up campaigns to combat speculated GOP plans on abortion, immigration, and other issue areas. Democrats are enlisting high-powered lawyers, while opposition researchers at the Democratic National Committee are compiling dossiers of incoming federal officials, the New York Times also reported.” And: “Omidyar’s group routed $750,000 in April to a project called Free Election Fund, which is associated with Marc Elias, the Democratic superlawyer who pushed the discredited Steele Dossier aiming to link Trump to Russia falsely in 2016… The Free Election Fund used to be called the Democracy Docket Legal Fund. It is housed under the Hopewell Fund, a group managed by an influential Democratic-aligned consulting firm called Arabella Advisors. In 2020, Omidyar’s Democracy Fund also granted $1.5 million to the Elias-linked legal group ‘to detect and combat suppressive voting laws and practices through litigation,’ records show. GSD, the group co-chaired by Pritzker and Polis, says on its website that it will ‘develop playbooks to enable governors and their teams to anticipate and swiftly respond to emerging threats.’ The group will also aim ‘to protect executive agencies, elections, state courts, and other core democratic bodies,’ GSD adds on its website.” • Oh, playbooks [musical interlude]. This is the Times article cited by the Examiner–

“Democrats Draw Up an Entirely New Anti-Trump Battle Plan” [New York Times]. “Democratic officials, activists and ambitious politicians are seeking to build their second wave of opposition to Mr. Trump from the places that they still control: deep-blue states…. Some of the planning in blue states began in 2023 as a potential backstop if Mr. Trump won, according to multiple Democrats involved in different efforts. The preparations were largely kept quiet to avoid projecting public doubts about Democrats’ ability to win the election.” Gad. More: “The Democratic effort will rely on the work of hundreds of lawyers, who are being recruited to combat Trump administration policies on a range of Democratic priorities. Already, advocacy groups have begun workshopping cases and recruiting potential plaintiffs to challenge expected regulations, laws and administrative actions starting on Day 1.” But: “Some of the first maneuvering by top Democrats began this past week, when Mr. Pritzker and Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado announced the formation of a group called Governors Safeguarding Democracy. Its unveiling followed several days of behind-the-scenes drama, as several fellow Democratic governors declined to join the group, at least for now. A draft news release listed six other governors as members of the coalition led by Mr. Pritzker and Mr. Polis. But four of them — Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania — declined to join, according to people briefed on the discussions. Govs. Tony Evers of Wisconsin and Josh Green of Hawaii were also named on the draft news release, but neither has yet agreed to join the group. Alex Gough, a spokesman for Mr. Pritzker, said that the group had been working with 20 governors’ offices but that ‘not all of these governors wish to be named publicly at this time for understandable reasons, including the potential threats states are facing.'” • Or maybe the reluctant governors don’t want to sign on to Pritzker 2028?

“Bury the #Resistance, Once and For All” [The Nation]. “In late September, I warned about the reemergence within the Democratic coalition of the failed #Resistance mindset that defined the 2016 election and the response to Donald Trump’s first term. Among that movement’s defining features were trying to shame or scare voters into voting against Trump, rather than for the Democrat, an over-reliance on pop culture signifiers rather than policy, and a hope and a prayer for the system, in particular prosecutors and the FBI, to deliver us from evil…. Rather than engage in meaningful self-reflection, though, many top Democrats are looking for someone other than party leadership and their own candidate to blame. Just like after Clinton’s 2016 loss, they’re landing on the progressive wing of the party and voters from marginalized groups.” • Surely one needs to include financing in a list of “defining features”? As above?

Spook Country

“DOJ Apparatchiks Told to Lawyer Up and Flee the Country. Why?” [Declassified with Julie Kelly]. “The resume-burnishing appears to extend to main Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (housed under the DOJ), and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia office, which oversees the government’s ongoing prosecution of January 6 protesters. Anonymous ‘sedition hunters’ who have aided the FBI in targeting and identifying hundreds of J6ers deleted their social media accounts over the weekend for fear of reprisal; the FBI reportedly paid the ‘sedition hunters’ as FBI informants to help their pursuit of Trump supporters.” Nice precedent there. More: “Mark Zaid, an attorney who represented self-described Ukrainian ‘whistleblower’ Eric Ciaramella, prompting the first impeachment of Trump in 2019, just told both CNN and Politico magazine that government officials worried they will be pursued by a Trump DOJ or Republican Congress should travel ‘outside of the country’ right around Inauguration Day.” And: “But why would anyone else leave the country around Inauguration Day? To wait and see if Trump signs an executive order authorizing an investigation of everything from the Russian collusion hoax and the Ukrainian impeachment operation to the coverup of the Biden family corruption ring? To wait and see if the acting attorney general appoints a special counsel to investigate Smith’s team as well as the events of January 6? And therein lies the justified panic within the DOJ and national security state. The ground is fertile for multiple investigations with legitimate criminal liability for top officials including Smith, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and DC US Attorney Matthew Graves in addition to line prosecutors and investigators.”

Syndemics

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

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Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); 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, KidDoc, 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!

Morbidity and Mortality

“Oil and gas well proximity linked to higher rates of COVID-19 mortality” [Phys.org]. “But a new study by Timothy Archer and colleagues is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, to study whether proximity specifically to oil and gas development could also be linked to higher rates of COVID-19. The researchers studied COVID-19 case and death rates during the first year of the pandemic (February 2020 to January 2021), focusing on California communities located within 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) of active oil and gas wells. In addition to COVID-19 case records, the researchers…. In communities within 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) of an actively producing well, COVID-19 cases were 34% higher and mortality rates were 55% higher in the first four months of the pandemic. Though the results did not show a significant association between well production and COVID-19 cases over the entire year, mortality rates were higher in the areas with the highest production.” • Hmm.

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TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater
This week[1] CDC November 11	Last Week[2] CDC (until next week):
★ Variants [3] CDC November 23	Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC November 9
Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data November 21:	★ National [6] CDC November 21:
Positivity
National[7] Walgreens November 18:	Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic November 16:
Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC October 28:	Variants[10] CDC October 28:
Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 2:	Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 2:

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) Good news!

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* still popular. XEC has entered the chat. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.

[4] (ED) Down.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Steadily down.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Actually improved; it’s now one of the few charts to show the entire course of the pandemic to the present day.

[7] (Walgreens) Down.

[8] (Cleveland) Down.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down.

[10] (Travelers: Variants). Now XEC.

[11] Deaths low, positivity down.

[12] Deaths low, ED down.

Stats Watch

There are no official statistics of interest today.

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Manufacturing: “FAA eyes new Boeing 737 MAX pilot instructions after smoke emergencies” [Seattle Times]. “The Federal Aviation Administration is weighing whether to require all pilots of 737 MAX aircraft to take off with the air flow from the main engines into the aircraft’s interior turned off — to avoid a risk of smoke flooding the plane if one of the engines hits a bird. Such a change in takeoff procedure for pilots would be temporary until Boeing comes up with a permanent fix. Devising that could further delay certification of the Renton-built MAX 7 and MAX 10 models. The FAA said in a statement Thursday that it ‘will convene a Corrective Action Review Board in the coming weeks to examine the data and develop a path forward’ and assess the options to prevent the risk of smoke entering the cockpit or passenger cabin. In the meantime, the FAA said that because pilots have been alerted to the procedure they should follow if smoke enters the plane, ‘this is not an immediate flight-safety issue.’ The proposed FAA action is a response to the safety risk exposed by two serious incidents on Southwest Airlines MAXs last year. In those two incidents, a bird collided with an engine during takeoff and the damage caused an oil leak. The oil ignited in the hot engine, sending heavy smoke and fumes into the interior of the airplane. Airflow off an aircraft’s engines — known as “bleed air” — is normally directed to the airplane interior and passed through air conditioning packs to control the air pressure and temperature inside.” • Still nothing from Gates or the Seattle Times on Ortberg’s “stop bitching” pep talk. Odd!

Manufacturing: “Boeing inks contracts worth more than $4B for KC-46s, P-8s” [Breaking Defense]. “The Pentagon this week awarded Boeing a pair of separate contracts for 15 KC-46A Pegasus tankers and seven P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft, deals that are collectively worth more than $4 billion. Although both contracts had been expected under existing plans, getting the deals signed is good news for Boeing, whose defense arm logged $2 billion in losses for its last fiscal quarter and which is facing company-wide layoffs…. ‘This $1.67 billion undefinitized contract for seven additional P-8A Poseidons not only reinforces the U.S. Navy’s commitment to maintaining a robust maritime presence but also highlights Boeing’s dedication to delivering safe, reliable platforms that enhance the Navy’s operational capabilities, readiness and effectiveness,’ [said] Tory Peterson, vice president and P-8 program manager at Boeing.” • “Undefinitized”? Is that a word?

The Bezzle: “A perfect storm is brewing for Bitcoin” [CoinTelegraph]. “Bitcoin is the world’s most reflexive asset today. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission recently approved options for several Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Once issued, these options lead to gamma squeezes, acting like reflexivity. Together, that’s reflexivity squared, leading to unprecedented price movements…. Financial markets are deeply influenced by human behavior. George Soros famously coined the concept of “reflexivity” to describe the circular relationship between perception and reality in financial markets. Bitcoin exemplifies this concept more than any other asset: As its price rises, the asset garners increasing attention, which leads to further investment, driving prices even higher. Prominent investors such as Jamie Dimon and Warren Buffett have criticized Bitcoin because of its reflexive nature. They have argued that it lacks intrinsic value because its price seems to move based on perception. But that is precisely the point: Bitcoin is the most reflexive asset because its supply is genuinely finite, more finite than precious metals or top-performing equities. The scarcity of Bitcoin is what makes it fundamentally valuable.”

Tech: “‘A place of joy’: why scientists are joining the rush to Bluesky” [Nature]. “In the two weeks since the US presidential election, the platform has grown from close to 14 million users to nearly 21 million. Bluesky has broad appeal in large part because it looks and feels a lot like X (formerly known as Twitter), which became hugely popular with scientists, who used it to share research findings, collaborate and network. One estimate suggests that at least half a million researchers had Twitter profiles in 2022…. Daryll Carlson, a bioacoustics researcher at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, says she noticed the largest influx of users on Bluesky after the US election. Musk has become closely aligned to president-elect Donald Trump. For Carlson, Bluesky offers a space to engage with other scientists, as well as artists, photographers and the general public. ‘I’d really like it to continue to be a place of joy for me,’ she says.” • Just like the Kamala campaign…

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Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 61 Greed (previous close: 57 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 51 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Nov 22 at 1:12:19 PM ET.

Permaculture

“The World’s Oldest Forest Is Here in the Hudson Valley” [Hudson Valley]. “On the floor of an abandoned quarry in Cairo, in Greene County, researchers have found the earliest tree fossils yet discovered anywhere in the world. Dating back roughly 387 million years, the find has thoroughly rewritten the story of the origins of trees. One researcher called the discovery nothing less than ‘mindblowing.’… After beginning studies in the region in 1993, the collective made significant inroads in 2007 and 2008 when they learned to recognize the bases of two types of fossil trees. According to [Christopher] Berry, one is the large rooting system of the Archaeopteris tree, while the other is the dish-like imprint of the Cladoxylopsid tree, which contains hundreds of radiating roots… It is no exaggeration to say that this is one of the most important things that has happened in the history of the world. Those early trees absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which led to a rapid cooling favorable to more complicated forms of animal life. The shade provided by the broad, flat leaves of taller trees protected critters on the ground from the sun, and the roots limited soil erosion. ‘The arrival of these forests was the creation of the modern world,’ Berry told Smithsonian Magazine.” And: “Eventually, the remains of those early plants and trees, compacted over hundreds of millions of years, became the coal deposits that fueled the Industrial Revolution, returning the carbon they had absorbed into the atmosphere, thereby triggering the present age of global warming.” • Oh. Anyhow, here’s a picture of a fossilized root system:

“Salmon return to lay eggs in historic habitat after largest dam removal project in US history” [Oregon Public Broadcasting]. “A giant female Chinook salmon flips on her side in the shallow water and wriggles wildly, using her tail to carve out a nest in the riverbed as her body glistens in the sunlight. In another moment, males butt into each other as they jockey for a good position to fertilize eggs. These are scenes local tribes have dreamed of seeing for decades as they fought to bring down four hydroelectric dams blocking passage for struggling salmon along more than 400 miles (644 kilometers) of the Klamath River and its tributaries along the Oregon-California border. Now, less than a month after those dams came down in the largest dam removal project in U.S. history, salmon are once more returning to spawn in cool creeks that have been cut off to them for generations.” • Less than a month!!

Gallery

“Man who spent $6.2 million on banana duct-taped to wall says he’s going to eat it” [NBC]. Grocery inflation just hit its peak after a single banana was sold for $6.2 million Wednesday. Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun dropped over $6 million on the piece of produce — because it was duct-taped to a wall. The banana is part of a piece of artwork called Comedian, created by the Italian artist and satirist Maurizio Cattelan. ‘In the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in both art history and popular culture,’ he said. Sun’s snacking won’t change the value of his investment, however. His $6.2 million purchase awarded him a roll of duct tape, instructions on how to ‘install’ the banana properly and, most importantly, a certificate of authenticity guaranteeing the artwork, when reproduced by Sun, as an original work of Cattelan’s, CNBC reported. The soon-to-be devoured banana wasn’t included in his winnings, as the fruit tends to rot quickly. But the value of the artwork isn’t in the banana itself — it’s derived from the certificate accompanying the purchase.” • I’m not sure this business scales.

News of the Wired

“Mathematical Thinking Isn’t What You Think It Is” [Quanta]. “According to [mathematician David Bessis], the way math is taught in school emphasizes the logic-based part of this process, when the more important element is intuition. Math should be thought of as a dialogue between the two: between reason and instinct, between language and abstraction. It’s also a physical practice of sorts, like yoga or martial arts — something that can be improved through training. It requires tapping into a childlike state and embracing one’s imagination, including the mistakes that come with it.” BESSIS: “When you do math, you’re exposed to the human thought process in a way that is really pure. It’s not just about understanding things, but about understanding things in a very childish, deep, naïve, super clear, obvious way. It’s very good training for creativity. It’s a scaffold for your imagination.” • Bessis is French, and the article is accompanied by photos of Paris (and Bessis) that are so Parisian I want to find an art house cinema and start watching Truffaut movies. And start smoking cigarettes.

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Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From TH:

TH writes: “I decided to try opening this email account on my dying computer since I was able to use it’s Picasa on some photos, and what do you know? Today it is working. This is Thunbergia growing in a lovely garden on Naples Island in Long Beach (CA).”

Kind readers, we are almost there with plant photos. Thank you! But one thing: I’m mostly seeing handles or email addresses that I already know. If you haven’t sent in a plant photo to Water Cooler, why not try it? It’s easy, it’s fun, and you get some nice compliments! (If you need directions, see below.)

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Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. Material here is Lambert’s, and does not express the views of the Naked Capitalism site. If you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for three or four days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:

Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated:

If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!