By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Patient readers, I have once more been swept up in the social whirl. More soon! –lambert
Bird Song of the Day
Brown Thrasher, Yard, Bledsoe, Tennessee, United States. Lot going on in “Yard” (or “my yard”?).
In Case You Might Miss…
- New Covid charts that Lambert does not like.
- Faiz Shakir throws his hat in the DNC ring.
- Ancient Britain a matriarchal society?
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
Biden Administration
“Biden says the Equal Rights Amendment should be considered ratified” [Associated Press]. On the Friday before the inaugural? Thanks a bunch! Why not back in 2020, when it could have been part of the abortion battle? More: “‘The Equal Rights Amendment is the law of the land,’ Biden said even though presidents have no role in the constitutional process. He did not direct the leader of the National Archives to certify the amendment, as some activists have called for, sidestepping a legal battle. It was the latest in a collection of pronouncements that Biden has made in the waning days of his presidency as he tries to tie up loose ends and embroider [good word choice!] his legacy despite leaving after only one term.” And: “The Equal Rights Amendment, which would ban discrimination based on gender, was sent to the states for ratification in 1972. Virginia became the 38th state to ratify it in 2000, although years past the deadline set by Congress, leading to a legal standoff over whether it could be considered valid…. It’s unlikely that Biden’s support will have any impact. On Friday, the National Archives reiterated its position by saying ‘the underlying legal and procedural issues have not changed.'” • Oh. So I guess it’s just a fundraising hook.
“An Expert in Grand Strategy Thinks Trump Is on to Something” [Politico]. The deck: “Do you want a future in which Canada defects to the EU, Russia rules the Arctic and China runs Latin America? That’s the default outcome of non-action.” And: “Trump’s approach to international affairs reflects Americans’ judgment that we are done building a world order — which we’ve overseen from 1954 to 2008 —and now must vigorously embrace an aggressively competitive approach to this multipolar world; in other words, be less the generous market-maker and more the selfish market-player. The world’s superpowers (U.S., Europe, Russia, India, China) fear one another more and more. We sense an imperative in this re-regionalization/decoupling era — one that screams get yours now before somebody else does!” And here is the kicker: “But let’s also get more real in our thinking and the terms we offer. Justin Trudeau is right when he says Canada will never become America’s 51st state, but what if it became America’s 51st-through-59th-states? Would that be enough political power and standing for Canadians to choose over admission into the EU? Say, 18 Senate seats and more congressional districts than California’s 52 seats? That’s a respectful offer. Greenland holds two seats in Denmark’s 179-member parliament. Does that strike you as more empowering than two seats in the U.S. Senate? How about a $57 billion buy-out package that makes every Greenlander an instant millionaire? Does Trump have your undivided attention now?” • Readers, what do you think? Should such an offer be made? Having been made, should it be accepted?
“Trump Picks a Jet-Setting Pal of Elon Musk to Go Get Greenland” [New York Times]. “Ken Howery is a quiet, unassuming tech investor who prioritizes discretion. And yet, he has ended up in the middle of two of the noisiest story lines of the incoming Trump administration. One is the expanding ambition of Elon Musk, Mr. Howery’s close friend and fellow party-scene fixture since the two helped run PayPal 25 years ago. The other is the expansionist ambition of Mr. Musk’s boss, President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has set his sights on buying Greenland, the world’s largest island. As Mr. Trump’s pick for ambassador to Denmark, Mr. Howery is expected to be central to what Mr. Trump hopes will be a real-estate deal of epic proportions. The only hitch is that Denmark, which counts Greenland as its autonomous territory, says the island is not for sale. Whether he likes it or not, Mr. Howery, a globe-trotter known for his taste for adventure and elaborate party planning, is likely to find himself in the middle of a geopolitical tempest. Mr. Trump has been explicit about his expectations for his new ambassador filling a once-sleepy post. When he announced Mr. Howery for the role, which requires Senate confirmation, he reiterated his designs on Greenland for the first time since winning the presidency.”
* * * “Trump selections for top jobs advance, despite initial controversy” [WaPo]. “When President-elect Donald Trump first unveiled his picks to staff his new administration, some of the more unconventional names sparked gasps and speculation that they could not amass enough support to be confirmed even in a GOP-controlled Senate…. But three days ahead of Trump’s return to the White House, many of his most prominent Cabinet choices have sailed relatively unscathed through their hearings and are poised to win confirmation as Republican senators rallied around them and appeared largely unwilling to defy Trump’s wishes…. Senate GOP opposition to many of the current Trump picks has not materialized, at least not publicly, after Matt Gaetz, Trump’s original pick for attorney general, withdrew under pressure. No Republican lawmakers have said they will oppose Hegseth, though a handful have not made their intentions clear. Trump’s nominees can lose three Republicans at most and still be confirmed if no Democrat backs them. It’s rare for the Senate to reject presidential picks. But Hegseth’s apparent glide path bodes well for some of Trump’s other controversial choices, like former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, his pick for director of national intelligence, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Their hearings have not been scheduled but are expected soon. Kash Patel’s nomination as FBI director is also considered a harder sell.”
“Scoop: Trump team sweats McConnell’s vote on Tulsi Gabbard” [Axios]. “President-elect Trump Trump’s transition thinks Gabbard, the nominee for director of national intelligence, can get confirmed even with a “no” vote from McConnell. But his public opposition — if it materializes — could open the door to other GOP defectors…. If Democrats have any chance — and it’s slim — at helping drag down a Trump nominee, they see Gabbard as the most likely prospect. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer views the party’s grilling of Hegseth as a success. He’ll demand the same for their treatment of Gabbard, HHS nominee RFK Jr. and FBI director nominee Kash Patel.”
* * * “White House’s Pandemic Office, Busy With Bird Flu, May Shrink Under Trump” [Time]. “By Inauguration Day on Monday, most of the pandemic office’s staff will have cleared out their desks. The office, officially known as the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, or OPPR, is losing more than half of its 18-person staff as the Biden Administration hands off the duties to a Trump Administration that has yet to fill multiple key pandemic-response positions, according to two Biden Administration officials. The political appointees in charge of the office—director Paul Friedrichs and deputy director Nikki Romanik—are leaving to make way for potential Trump appointments, and several of the office’s 14 career staffers, whose assignments to the White House office were temporary, are returning to their home agencies…. Supporters of OPPR point to its work in recent months addressing the spread of a virulent strain of bird flu, which was first detected infecting U.S. dairy cattle in March.” • Supporters do that? Oh….
* * * “Trump team ‘having a good laugh’ over Michelle Obama’s ‘deliberate’ decision to skip inauguration: ‘Didn’t expect her to come anyway'” [Page Six, New York Post]. “Barack and Michelle Obama’s office announced this week that Michelle will skip the 60th inaugural ceremonies on Jan. 20, but that the former president will attend. Michelle also skipped former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Jan. 9 because she was on an “extended vacation” in Hawaii.” And: “‘She’s never been fake and she’s never been phony. She’s always been very deliberate about where and how she shows up,’ the source said.” But: “She showed up reluctantly for the election.” Oh?!?!? So: “They were united, but she doesn’t have to unify around [Trump]. She doesn’t have to say anything. Her absence speaks volumes.” • Ho hum.
DOGE
“Two Watchdogs Were Rebuffed From Joining Trump’s Cost-Cutting Effort” [New York Times]. “President-elect Donald J. Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has been on a hiring spree, looking for tech executives and conservative activists to dig into the federal government and look for rules and spending to cut. On Thursday, two activists from a left-leaning watchdog group asked: Where do we sign up? ‘We write to request our appointment as members of the ‘Department of Government Efficiency,” wrote Norman Eisen and Virginia Canter, in a letter to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the leaders of Mr. Trump’s unofficial effort that plans to slash regulations and spending. The Trump transition team’s response: no. ‘President Trump’s Truth made clear we have no room in our administration for Democrats,’ said Katie Miller, a spokeswoman for the Trump transition, in an email to The New York Times.” • Hmm.
2024 Post Mortem
Get Shirley Chisholm’s name out of your mouth:
History made. pic.twitter.com/eBVKIEU2ps
— The Democrats (@TheDemocrats) January 16, 2025
My Twitter feed is absolutely infested with saccharine posts from BIden Democrats that assume we’re going to be sorry to see them go because of the great job they did, and the great people they are. It’s driving me nuts. More of the same–
“‘One of the great tragedies of American politics’: Biden ends 5 decades in public life” [NBC]. “He does not plan to hold the traditional final formal news conference.” • Juice no good any more?
“‘I’m Urging You Not to Run’: How Schumer Pushed Biden to Drop Out” [New York Times]. “When Mr. Schumer arrived at Mr. Biden’s beach house that summer day, he could hear the president shouting.” • I wonder if Biden’s book will include that detail…
“The DNC race for chair was a boring technocratic debate — until now” [MSNBC]. “Former Bernie Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir has thrown his hat in the ring. Since he’s joining the race just a couple weeks before the DNC’s members vote, it will be a challenge for him to catch the front-runners…. He’s worked closely with the upper echelons of the party establishment, serving as an aide to former Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He also had high-profile posts at the Center for American Progress, the premier think tank affiliated with the center-left party establishment. But he’s also worked in the left wing of the party, most notably managing Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign. That campaign was far from perfect, but Sanders came close to winning the Democratic presidential primaries, losing only after the moderate wing of the party consolidated behind Joe Biden [during the Night of the Long Knives orchestrated by Obama]. He also served as political director of the American Civil Liberties Union and is currently the executive director of More Perfect Union, an advocacy journalism nonprofit that describes its mission as ‘building power for the working class.'” • Could do worse, I suppose….
“Former Bernie Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir enters DNC Chair race” [Politico]. “‘We all seemingly agree — rhetorically at least — that focusing on winning back America’s diverse working class is of utmost priority,’ Shakir wrote in his letter to DNC members. ‘But as I have listened to our candidates, I sense a constrained, status-quo style of thinking. We cannot expect working class audiences to see us any differently if we are not offering anything new or substantive to attract their support.'”… In his letter to members, Shakir laid out some of his platform for his bid, including a pledge to turn the DNC into ‘an organizing army’ with its own ‘powerful media outlet’ that will release its own ‘compelling original content.'” • OK, but if the new DNC is an”organizing army,” what is the AFL-CIO for? I know, I know, “don’t answer that,” but you see the issue….
“Faiz Shakir, Ex-Bernie Sanders Campaign Chief, Joins Race for D.N.C. Chair” [New York Times]. The deck: “Mr. Shakir said his mission, should he win the post, would be to redefine the Democratic Party as the party of the working class.” ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished (except by the Democrat PMC base, of course). More: “[Shakir] described the Democratic brand as fundamentally ‘tarnished,’ ‘broken’ and in need of repair. ‘It’s late in the game,’ he said of his entrance. ‘If we can’t have a bold [dread word; remember “bold progressives”?] debate about these issues — it’s now or never.'” And: “The intraparty debate over who will lead it has so far largely revolved around internal concerns such as how much money the national committee will allocate to state parties and who will or will not be awarded contracts to do the party’s work.” • That is, which consultants wet their beaks. It would be nice if Shakir could blow that away, but that seems dubious to me.
“Faiz Shakir’s Late Entry Shakes Up the Race for DNC Chair” [John Nichols, The Nation]. “But even if he may be coming from behind, Shakir’s candidacy should ensure that the chair’s race will be more sharply focused on ending the DNC’s deference to economic elites—a bedrock concern for Shakir, who has worked as a senior adviser for the anti-monopoly agitators at the American Economic Liberty Project.” • That’s the “American Economic Liberties Project.” Spell the name right, ffs. Still, very good news!
“Faiz Shakir, Bernie Sanders’ former campaign chief, enters DNC race” [Associated Press]. “Shakir acknowledged that it may be too late for him to win, but he said something was needed to shake up the race. ‘It feels very fluid to me, based out of a lack of energy and a sense of aimless drift that people are feeling,’ he said. ‘Democrats are in the wilderness, right? There’s no real leader.'” • Ouch!
* * * “Fetterman was elected to challenge convention. Now, he’s challenging his fellow Democrats” [Associated Press]. I don’t agree with the headline at all. Fetterman’s strategy was “every county, every vote.” It was not policy-oriented at all. Fetterman won because he went out and asked for people’s votes, and the voters concluded, rightly, that Mehmet Oz was a loon and worse, an out-of-stater, a fact that Fetterman’s brilliant social media team drove home. More: “Fetterman’s approach is reminding some Democrats of former Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, both of whom clashed with their party during President Joe Biden’s term, became political independents and didn’t run for reelection.” • Well, the party needs it’s rotating villains, and now that Sinema and Manchin are gone, look who pops up.
* * * “If Trump Wants to Unrig the Economy, I’m In” [Elizabeth Warren, Wall Street Journal]. • Excuse my French, but Christ on a crutch, Liz! Has your party been calling Trump a fascist for four years or not? And now it’s “Never mind“? Shakir is so, so right [pounds head on desk].
* * * “How Democrats Drove Silicon Valley Into Trump’s Arms” (interview) [Marc Andreesen, New York Times]. “[ANDREESEN:] Normie Democrat is what I call the Deal, with a capital D. Nobody ever wrote this down; it was just something everybody understood: You’re me, you show up, you’re an entrepreneur, you’re a capitalist, you start a company, you grow a company, and if it works, you make a lot of money. And then the company itself is good because it’s bringing new technology to the world that makes the world a better place, but then you make a lot of money, and you give the money away. Through that, you absolve yourself of all of your sins. Then in your obituary, it talks about what an incredible person you were, both in your business career and in your philanthropic career. And by the way, you’re a Democrat, you’re pro–gay rights, you’re pro-abortion, you’re pro all the fashionable and appropriate social causes of the time. There are no trade-offs. This is the Deal.” But: “[A]fter Obama’s re-election in 2012 through ultimately to 2016, things really started to change…. the unifying thread here is, I believe it’s the children of the elites. The most privileged people in society, the most successful, send their kids to the most politically radical institutions, which teach them how to be America-hating communists. They fan out into the professions, and our companies hire a lot of kids out of the top universities, of course. And then, by the way, a lot of them go into government, and so we’re not only talking about a wave of new arrivals into the tech companies. We’re also talking about a wave of new arrivals into the congressional offices. And of course, they all know each other, and so all of a sudden you have this influx, this new cohort. And my only conclusion is what changed was basically the kids. In other words, the young children of the privileged going to the top universities between 2008 to 2012, they basically radicalized hard at the universities, I think, primarily as a consequence of the global financial crisis and probably Iraq. Throw that in there also. But for whatever reason, they radicalized hard…. It turned out to be a coalition of economic radicals, and this was the rise of Bernie Sanders, but the kids turned on capitalism in a very fundamental way. They came out as some version of radical Marxist, and the fundamental valence went from ‘Capitalism is good and an enabler of the good society’ to ‘Capitalism is evil and should be torn down.’ And then the other part was social revolution and the social revolution, of course, was the Great Awokening, and then those conjoined.” • Well, fortunately the Democrats nobbled Sanders and prevented the social revolution part. But does Andreesen give them credit for that? N-o-o-o-o. Why, the ingratitude.
Realignment and Legitimacy
“Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, clears way for app to shut down in U.S. as soon as Sunday” [CBS]. “‘We conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate the petitioners’ First Amendment rights,’ the court said in a unanimous unsigned opinion, which upholds the lower court decision against TikTok. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch wrote separately, with Gorsuch agreeing with the outcome of the case but splitting with the court’s reasoning. The court’s ruling comes days before the law, which was passed with bipartisan majorities of Congress last April, is set to take effect. TikTok and a group of content creators who use the app argued the law infringes on their free speech rights, and the Supreme Court heard arguments in their bid to block it one week ago. ‘There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community. But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary,’ the court’s opinion said.'” • I personally would prefer to hand my data over to the Chinese government, because what are they going to do with it? Rather than a US corporation, which has all kinds of ways of doing me harm.
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 (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, thump, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Celebrity Watch
Oddly, this page has disappeared from the intertubes:
Commentary:
Celebrities getting COVID at the hotel they’re all staying at and let me remind you the industry-standard US film&TV industry COVID safety protocols (vaccines, quarantines, paid sick leave, masking, PCR testing of all crew) completely ended in May 2023 and not a single one spoke
— thomas 🛠 gazafunds.com/all (@t_NYC) January 14, 2025
Not that we’re bitter.
Lambert here: I don’t like a lot of this week’s charts. In wastewater, too many red dots concentrated in the Midwest and the Atlantic coast, so I started circling areas in red, again. New York’s weirdly persistent higher hospitalization rate continues. Traveler positivity is up, and worse, the dominant traveler variants are JN* and KP*, which, while present in the national variants, are very low. And in the two death charts, the projected deaths seem to have leveled out, when in the past they decreased. Nothing earth-shattering, but it does make me queasy, and it’s well after the holiday bump.
| Wastewater | |
| ★ This week[1] CDC January 10 | Last week[2] CDC (until next week): |
|
|
|
| ★ Variants [3] CDC January 18 |  ★ Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC January 11 |
|
|
|
| Hospitalization | |
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data January 16: | ★ National [6] CDC Janurary 16: |
|
|
|
| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens January 13: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic January 4: |
|
|
|
| Travelers Data | |
| ★ Positivity[9] CDC December 30: | ★ Variants[10] CDC December 30 |
|
|
|
| Deaths | |
| ★ Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC January 11: | ★ Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC January 11: |
|
|
|
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) Seeing more red and more orange, but nothing new at major hubs.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.
[4] (ED) A little uptick.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Definitely jumped.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.
[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.
[8] (Cleveland) Continued upward trend since, well, Thanksgiving.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.
[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.
[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.
[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.
Stats Watch
Manufacturing: “United States Industrial Production” [Trading Economics]. “Industrial production in the United States surged by 0.9% in December 2024, marking the strongest increase since February and significantly surpassing market expectations of a 0.3% rise. A key driver of this growth was a 0.2 percentage point contribution from the production of aircraft and parts, following the resolution of a work stoppage at a major aircraft manufacturer.”
Capacity: “United States Capacity Utilization” [Trading Economics]. “Capacity utilization in the US rose sharply to 77.6% in December of 2024, the highest since August, to rebound from the downwardly revised 77% recorded in the two prior months, which were the lowest since May 2020.”
Housing: “United States Housing Starts” [Trading Economics]. “Housing stars in the United States surged by 15.8% from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.499 Million units in December of 2024, the most since March 2021. It is the highest number of starts since February 2024, above market expectations of a softer increase to 1.320 Million.”
Tech: “KABOOM! SpaceX rocket EXPLODES as vid shows glowing debris raining down…but upbeat Elon Musk says ‘entertainment is guaranteed!'” [The U.S. Sun]. “Incredible footage shows glowing debris raining down across the sky after the 400ft behemoth failed after launching from Boca Chica, southern Texas, on Thursday…. Confirming the explosion, SpaceX wrote on X: “Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn.” • “Rapid unscheduled disassembly” is, of course, GENIUS. Hat tip, McKinsey?
Tech: “Apple pauses AI-generated news alerts after headline notification errors” [Axios]. “The BBC lodged an official complaint after the Apple Intelligence summaries generated an inaccurate headline of a report by the British outlet that incorrectly represented a report on Luigi Mangione, the suspect in last month’s killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, by suggesting he had committed suicide…. Following the BBC false headline controversy, the nonprofit Reporters Without Borders called generative AI services “a danger to the public’s right to reliable information on current affairs.'” • As if anybody cared about that!
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 38 Fear (previous close: 28 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 26 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jan 17 at 1:37:47 PM ET.
“Ancient burials reveal ‘remarkable’ women-dominated society in UK. ‘Relatively rare'” [News and Observer]. “When the Romans reached Britain in the first century, they were shocked to find ‘remarkable’ women standing in their way. Female tribal leaders Cartimandua and Boudica became legends, leading uprisings that destroyed Roman towns and challenged the authority of the empire, and women in their community were able to own property, divorce and lead the Celtic armies. Julius Caesar himself noted the seemingly exotic practice of British women taking more than one husband in his book ‘Commentarii de Bello Gallico.’ But, because bodies were commonly cremated, excarnated or placed in wetlands during the Iron Age, proof of these powerful matriarchal lineages was absent from the archaeological record in Britain — until now…. ‘This was the cemetery of a large kin group,’ study author Lara Cassidy, a professor genetics at Trinity College, said in the release. ‘We reconstructed a family tree with many different branches and found most members traced their maternal lineage back to a single woman, who would have lived centuries before. In contrast, relationships through the father’s line were almost absent.’ This means when a man was ready to marry, he would have left his community to go and join his wife’s, and that family land would have been passed from mother to daughter, Cassidy said. ‘This is the first time this type of system has been documented in European prehistory and it predicts female social and political empowerment,’ Cassidy said. ‘It’s relatively rare in modern societies, but this might not always have been the case.'” • Headline from the original (abstract only): “Women were at the centre of social networks in Iron Age Britain.”
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 Wukchumni:
Wukchumni writes: “Sunrise over the Garfield Grove, Sequoia NP.”
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!
That photo caption could also read: “Doom approacheth in serried ranks.”
Let Dusty the Adventure Dog be your guide.
I’m wondering what is happening to the myriads of “unhoused” Citizens in the Los Angeles Basin? Out to the desert with them?
Supreme Court gives cities in California and beyond more power to crack down on homeless camps Cal Matters
30 some years ago, when i lived in austin…in the brief period i was housed right before i came out here…i was something of an advocate for homeless folks. i knew a lot of them…helped them out when i could.
and went to the big protests downtown when austin was doing its “no sitting” thing.
even then, the vacant houses and even apartment complexes and subdivisions(left over from the late 80’s bust) were the obvious solution,lol….but, being a wilderness being at root, i always wondered:
if we cant do the obvious, ready made thing…why not think outside the box, and do homesteading again?
lots and lots of empty places left in USA.
i know, because i live in one,lol.
send these folks nobody wants out to the hinterlands, with basic provisions and basic tools and basic materials, and say…here, build y’all’selves a town, or something.
just within an hundred or so miles of me, to the north and west, are abandoned places…even abandoned towns.
people that own such places likely cant sell them…because there aint nothing out there…but there wasnt anything out here when my neighboring towns were built, either.
i’m aware of the “reservation” connotations, of course.
but prolly 70% of the homeless i knew back then were not drugged and crazy.
they just had a run of bad luck, and couldnt make it the modern world.
so, if the ptb, local, state and fed, cant stand these eyesore humans…give them a place to be that nobody wants…and give them the minimal resources and training to make a go of it.
when i was homeless…and alternately de facto homeless…for those ten years..i would have jumped at such an offer.
I think for many the use of torture in its many forms is the thing that matter, much as torture in the War on Terror, for it feels good to “punish” those deemed inferior or defective.
tried my whole life,but ive never understood that need in people…especially in those who(“lo there”) go about proclaiming loudly how christian and holy they are.
Humanism is dead, i suppose…and they have killed it.
perhaps reanimating that tradition is where we need to begin, no?
Altadena was where many Black families bought homes in the 60’s, population 31% Black. Lot of Mexicans there too, they are devastated. I’ve heard 45,000 displaced. Trucks headed down from Oakland with supplies, AIM donating coats. There is a link to send funds if folks interested.
Purple mountain majesties-above the fruited plain, America.
Dusty the Adventure Dog is on my lap, dreaming of doing something daring…
aye.
last nice day.
73 degrees, but the southwest wind(gusting at 45, a few times) is chilly…but the wilderness bar is built to deflect southwest and southeast winds…and protect somewhat from the north, in at least part of the bar/library cloister.
so i’ve been out here all day.
vac sealed all that deer meat i cut up yesterday…and the big gray rooster i butchered after that.
and im cooking another leg o lamb on the smoker, re-a-l slow….
and nekkid in the sun…vitamin D, and all….
because it all goes to sh&t tomorrow afternoon, and the arctic pays a visit for a few days.
firewood is laid in…i hope its enough,lol.
water containers filled(bc ill cut off the water on sunday…lest i be pressed into plumbing when its 44 degrees and windy next wednesday)
so its been homegrown and coffee for the first half of my day….and eating like a king, in spite of the whole poverty thing….and now its beer and jazz in the sun, giving the winter salad garden a last soak, for to fortify it against the cold(ill pick a bunch of salad and cilantro manana)….and watching the turks, chix and guinneas wander around, doing their thing…not knowing that this is their last day of freedom for a while….
ill keep em in the run….or in the chix house when its really cold.
buckets of water in greenhouse to keep them hydrated during the event.
and the woodstoves are chargedand ready for the match…and ive got the heater side of the minisplit running to charge the house similarly(easier to maintain heat than to heat up)….and ive got all the western curtains…and the big baffles on the wood porch…open to let in as much sunlight as possible, on this last warm day.
and i, too, am soaking the sun into my bones…the large lizard on a rock thing.
cuz the next week is gonna suck big hairy.
seemed appropriate to switch to one of the sunday blues playlists:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spkcAjt-TKU
wind has shifted more to the west…working its way to from the north…
so longjohns,lol.
as far as im willing to go, at the moment.
i’ll end up fully wrapped by the time the leg o lamb is ready.
high clouds…scattered cirrocumulus(mackeral scales)…but diffuse…shredded by the low level jet off baja thats overhead…mixing down into this surface wind.
those clouds are hustling…racing past, and then dissolving just to my east where the dryer air remains.
all this pacific water vapor is what will give us snow inna couple of days(ugh).
so the nekkid part of my day is done.
and im feeding and putting up later than usual…because all the critters need to use this day, too.
the last nice day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt2npNLdq7g
You know how the Feds are striving to keep inflation @ 2%, my home insurance bill just came in @ $8100, up from $6300 last year.
A tidy little 29% increase…
In other AI news:
AI-designed proteins tackle century-old problem — making snake antivenoms Nature
“Proteins designed using artificial intelligence (AI) can block the lethal effects of toxins delivered in the venom of cobras, adders and other deadly snakes.”
But, after that’s done, then what?
I guess Musk could get to Mars too.
One of the originally intended uses for AI is as a tool in scientific research. The problem with that is that it does not attract investments & big money, so businessmen came up with the hype that we have going on now.
Norm Eisen applying to DOGE.
Did not have that on my Bingo card.
With regards to the Greenland “buyout” plan – I’m sure Trump’s MAGA base will love a deal that makes foreigners millionaires. The US is literally rotting from within, and someone proposes this idiotic scheme.
This is an insane idea from people that should be nowhere near any decision making processes.
Sixty billions is equal to cost of about two Friedman units in Ukraine or Afghanistan. And you actually get something tangible for it. Anyway, he can say it will be paid for by EU, and this time he even will be right, given his other plans with EU regarding US gas and military “protection”.
Why am I not surprised to find that Thomas P.M. Barnett, who has expressed the view above about the US buying out Greenland and absorbing the Canadian provinces as states, is a Harvard-trained Ph.D. in political science who supported the Iraq War and wrote various imperialist grand strategies?
(I should note by way of fair disclosure I am a UMich-trained Ph.D. in History, and should note also that as an undergrad, I did support the Iraq War from autumn 2002 through spring 2004, then publicly admitted my errors in a column in the college paper after the Shiite Revolt in the Spring of ’04, when it became clear to 21-year old me that the Bushies were just full of it and making it up as they went along. I became deeply opposed to that war, and to American empire in general, as inconsistent with republican (small r) government.)
It is, with respect for my friends and a mentor who went there, a very Harvard, and very frankly political science-y view — it essentially and basically misunderstands the situation, by refusing to recognize that there are such things as nations, and that these are things born of shared experience and bonds of sentiment that make people willing to fight to maintain their independence, in ways that the obtuse “rationalism” of certain social scientists refuses to understand. (see also McNamara, Robert. The late great Col. Pat Lang said that in his view, a lot of the problems in US foreign policy came from having political scientists and economists running things, vs. historians, scholars of literature, philosophers.)
Canadians don’t want to be Americans and haven’t for quite a long time. See, e.g., the Battle of the Chateauguay.
If Greenlanders don’t want to be Danes, I think it highly unlikely they want to be Americans.
Small nations have the legitimate right to self-determination.
he’s still suffering from Empire Disease.
the repeated allusions to russian and chinese ‘aggression’ give it away.
people who project their sins onto others are often unaware that they project, at all(see: my mom…it scales quite nicely, as a pattern to hold up to loftier places)
were we still a rising empire, i could see the strategic logic of greenland and the canadian arctic…and panama, for that matter.
but as even this dude admits…however obliquely…we aint #1! any more…we have peer rivals.
and, too, i could see the strategic necessity of those places if we abandoned empire, and tried to go all autarkik, like russia did….reinvigorate manufacturing what we need, here at home.
lots of resources in those places…untapped because it was mostly icebound and crazy to work there.
but we’d hafta import chinese and russian engineers and tool builders…for the tools that build the tools…because our betters so unwisely let all that domestic acumen go.
with all that in the pipe, lets smoke it.
we are an empire in decline, who has offshored all its wherewithal for the obscene profits of the few.
we aint comin back from that,lol.
so all this yellin about greenland and saskatchewan is just performative grasping after a thing we never admitted to, and is now long past our reach.
“Why am I not surprised to find…”
Really fine comment, all through.
Wasn’t it Dick Cheney who said that the idea of nation states was “quaint?”
Yesterday, the thought occurred to me:
i thought about it,lol.
this last summers homegrown is rather strong stuff.
The hot topic today for the PMC people in my orbit is the TicTok ban. I don’t have the app but I do see posts in various places from TicTok. It seems very popular to the young people. Where is gets complicated is the why.
My PMC friends are all for the ban because it is a spying app from China and everybody knows it. Since this is what they think, I have to wonder what the real truth is? Given what we know from Facebook and Twitter (pre Musk) the government was pushing them to censor what they didn’t want spread. My first guess is the TicTok thing is about this as well – except they can’t influence TicTok because they are a foreign company, which is why they want it banned.
Not sure what to believe so only guessing and as usual, I have no idea who to believe.
I think you are correct that the PMC and the gummint are against Tik Tok because it is harder to censor and propagandize.
Even while shrieking about Toktok as the greatest threat since Chinese EVs, or Bernie Sanders, Biden and then Harris made it integral to their election strategies and for grounded their use of it as evidence of their brilliance. Are they Chinese agents or unwitting dupes?
Or is this all incoherent nonsense?
Regarding Tiktok, I’m not sure where I am. On the one hand, I think is a legitimate forum for self-expression under the First Amendment.
At the same time, I have real concerns that it is addictive. I met one guy who was younger, in his early 20s, who said he watched 8 hours of Tiktoks in a day. At around 4 per minute (15 seconds per video is common, is my understanding, which I’m glad to be corrected on), with 480 minutes in 8 hours, that’s 1,920 videos. I think it can’t help but have a role in decreasing attention spans.
Finally, I would object to not only any foreign government, but also the US government, owning this platform; I don’t think it’s properly the role of a government to own this sort of communications universe, or if it is, it should become a public utility.
Opium War in reverse? This time the Chinese bring in the addictive “substance”?
My teenagers spend inordinate amounts of time on TikTok. It’s addictive. But when my kids finally get tired of it, they flip over to YouTube :)
my young adult male offspring do, too.(almost 19 and 24).
i asked Eldest what he was gon do when the Banhammer came down…
he said, “well, move to Red(whatever it is)”.
no big deal,lol.
the people in charge only think they’re in charge.
like the porn bans.
lol.
VPN usage through the roof almost immediately!
more and more, it looks like we’re resembling the sclerotic and moribund Ottomans, than anything like the long end of western roman empire.
altho, i still expect a hasty, at some point, retreat from brittania, out my way.
with similar outcomes…save for the gunpowder and generalised increase in knowledge, since then.
itll still be warlordism/gangland(but with white folks!).
TikTok is full of western spooks censoring whatever the west want to be consored, and the spooks themselves know very well the tales about China influence are fiction. I think it’s just collective red scare paranoia fueled by recognition that their influence in world is diminishing.
my little sister and all her little friends keep asking about why tiktok is getting banned. i relish in sharing the mitt romney quote about too much palestine support on tiktok with them. a lot of my friends are anti tiktok for brainrot reasons. but you can be anti tiktok thanks to how well it has breaded and circused the populace while being anti censorship. it’s about the precedent it sets for banning apps the government doesn’t like. also, people will just find new ways to waste time online.
quotes for reference:
“You have a social media ecosystem environment in which context, history, facts get lost, and the emotion — the impact of images — dominates.” – Tony Blinken
“Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians, relative to other social media sites — it’s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts.” – Mitt Romney
McKinsey doesn’t get credit for RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly). The terms been around for a while, but the current popularity comes from Kerbal Space Program.
(Highly recommended, if more people had played KSP, we wouldn’t have been subjected to quite as much silly conjecture by people with no feel for orbital mechanics, the whole Oreshnik kerfuffle being the most recent.)
Scott Manley can confirm.
Remarkable women-dominated society in Britain. “Relatively rare.”
Not much data to go on, given that the scientists are trying to posit a larger society from one familial burying grounds.
But it is well known that Etruscan women were treated generally as equals, which scandalized their Roman neighbors, even though Roman women had much more latitude and rights than Greek women did. Roman women could divorce a man who abused them, for instance.
https://www.finestresullarte.info/opere-e-artisti/donna-etrusca-libera-bellissima-moderna
We don’t know much nitty-gritty about the Etruscans because their written records have disappeared. It was known that they had a revealed religion, for example. The article linked to above is in Italian, and it points to female literacy, decision making in the household, raising of all children born to a woman (without the Roman ceremony of the paterfamilias raising a child from the ground and accepting it), and public appearances at political and social functions.
But the article is in Italian, and we all know that in 400 BC, Italians were being irrational and wandering around in sleeveless t-shirts…
Thank you for this. I really was inspired and educated by this article. I have always loved the Sarcofago degli sposi da Cerveteri. The couple looks so wide-eyed and happy.
And for any fans of Italian antiquity, Alice Rohrwacher’s La chimera (2023) is a visually entertaining outing with a band of ne’er-do-well Etruscan grave robbers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkIC8YI9-eU
The nomadic and seminomadic people who inhabited north and west of China historically had a lot of women leaders, even in war: lots of records of warrior queens and princesses. While this scandalized the Confucian Chinese, the funny thing is that these peoples became the “Northern” dynasties during the Northern and Southern Dynasties and eventually unified all China as the Sui Dynasty (and the Li clan that supplanted the Sui as the Tang were mostly of the nomadic stock as well). The well known Chinese legend of the heroine Mulan supposesly took place during the Northern Wei Dynasty during 6th century, which makes sense in context, as it was one of the Northern Dynasties, although with a twist–it would make more sense if she were of the nomadic stock accustomed to warrior women rather than proper Han.
It does seem that gender equality was far more common around the world than one might think.
Here is a video by someone who just went to see RedBook given the upcoming TikTok ban. It is the second such video I have seen. I think it is the start of a fast-rising genre of videos, on TikTok for the next few days, and then elsewhere. This one is titled by the TikTokCringe subreddit agreggator as ” The Luigi Game is about to go Multiplayer.” Here is the link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1i3f1cy/luigis_game_is_about_to_be_multiplayer/
man,lol.
the comments are pretty crazy.
“both sides” of the official continuum singin from the same approved hymnal.
they dont live in the america i have inhabited for most of my life.
and again…every single MBA should hafta spend a semester on foodstamps in a trailerpark in some backwater, as a degree requirement.
how will they know, otherwise, how it really is, way down here?
oth, young mba’s are likely tastier than their older mentors and profs and such.
so, less time in the pens, etc.= more economical…and we can thereby prevent the proliferation of said parasites.
a modest proposal, and all.
>but what if it [Canada] became America’s 51st-through-59th-states
You heard it on NC first! Just follow the Wyoming Rule (min 500k pop), and you’re welcome to hang a star on the flag.
I think the most important takeaway from this is that overnight Trump has moved the Overton window and it’s not coming back. In the beforetimes, when someone would bring up this topic, it would get answered with scoffing, a snort, or a joke. Now people are seriously writing, talking, and even thinking about it.
Here in the new normal, where there are no pandemics and genocide is #I’mlovinit, we now realize that Kicking It Down The Road™ is global strategy. Why does the border split the Great Lakes in half? How different are Canadians from Americans, really, in 2025 and not 1960, when you try to map out the differences on a spreadsheet? (start with Covid, Gaza, and NATO — these should be massively different; sadly, they’re nearly lock-step).
The world is an accelerating stupid mess, it won’t get any worse by least considering the possibilities, but let’s open it up! Why should Canada join the US? Canada should join Russia! or Canada should outbid for Greenland! Quebec should separate and take Maine & Louisiana with it! Time for no idea is a bad idea and keep this party going.
its gonna get stupider, mark me words,lol.
any dissolution of an hegemony such as ours…after 80 somide years…is bound to be stupid.
the most powerful in that hegemony wont get the memo that its over for a long while, yet.
it will be considered spam, or the ravings of a lunatic.
until it isnt.
grasping and groping for the power thats slipping away…in ways that they cannot understand…one could almost pity the masters…almost.
Let their burning laurels cook them well…and may they feed the poor with their sacrifice.
Speaking of DOGE, it is now being reported that Vivek will run for govenor of Ohio, so clearly the brouhaha he started over Christmas did not sit well with Trump. I wonder what will become of DOGE now?
> I wonder what will become of DOGE now
DOGE will do fine without Vivek, just fine, and Vivek, having in essence called his Ohio voters deplorables in the H1B fiasco, will hopefully sink without a trace.
“Rapid unscheduled disassembly” is, of course, GENIUS. Hat tip, McKinsey?
I can’t wait to try: “Everybody in here needs to piss off! Or I’ll make sure you all experience a rapid unscheduled disassembly!”
Well, doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but…
…it blowed up real good!
Farm Film Report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHkvD7-u7y8
At HP when we had a spate of printers burning people’s houses down we referred it in emails as “rapid oxidation events.”
It was a fascinating investigation. Turns out flame retardant plastics and circuit boards aren’t really that, so much, under the right conditions. We had to redesign all our power supplies to prevent it, and HP, to their credit, did that.
Carly soon put paid to any such behaviour…..
I figure that Joe’s odds of making it through the weekend are pretty decent, so here is my send-off.
PS -anyone heard from Antifa?
Have a Cigar, Joe
(Melody from the Pink Floyd classic)
Come in here, dear Joe, have a cigar
You’ve really come far
You really flew high
We thought by now you’d die
But you made it to the end, we really love you!
I’ve always had the deep respect and I mean it most sincerely
The cease-fire was fantastic, that is really what I think
Oh by the way, what’s that genocidal stink?
And did we tell you the name of the game boy?
We call it ridin’ your walking cane …
We’re just knocked out
We heard about the Gaza sellout
You got a lot of pardons out
Hunter’s so happy he can hardly count
Kamala is just green
Don’t mind approval charts
Nance was really such a monster, but we’ll all pull together as a Donkey team!
And did we tell you the name of the game Joe?
We call it memory care for your brain!
Farewell, Joe. The country is in good hands with Brump. /s
Just as former Bank of England / Bank of Canada head guy Mark Carney announces his “outsider” run to be Justin Trudeau’s successor as leader of the Canadian federal Liberal Party, his green capitalism pet project is unravelling. Pity that Jon Stewart didn’t think to ask about that on Monday night.
I have added orts and scraps, quite late, but the charts take a minute. Have a good weekend, everyone!
Long time reader and infrequent commenter who will miss Lambert’s wit and wisdom when he retires from Water Cooler. Naked Capitalism has always been about sharing informed opinion and I offer here a somewhat unique story and perspective as a recently elected Commissioner (1 of 5) in one of the fastest growing Townships in Pennsylvania. I also have a favor to ask NC readers (see below) should it be allowed.
Myself and another man were elected, as “moderate” Democrats in an overwhelmingly Republican area of Central, PA in 2023. Either we were just lucky or there is a lesson that can be learned by what we did. We campaigned to “Preserve History and Open Space, Smart Growth, and Fiscal Conservatism” Our campaign signs said “Save It Before They Pave It” and we continue to use a website at saveupperallen.com to educate and inform our township’s 23,000 residents.
After a year of bi-partisanship and delivering a no tax increase $30 million budget, our board colleagues suddenly decided to pull the plug on an important project that we all agreed to include in our 2025 budget: The rehabilitation of the 1898 metal truss Bishop Bridge that is eligible for the National Register. The bridge can be fully restored using “old school” methods for $850,000 vs. a County estimate of $2,700,000. Saving this bridge under this protocol could save many more like it.
What changed? Our area is under intense development pressure and our County (Cumberland) recently changed the “Future Land Use” map for the beautiful area near the bridge from Rural/Agriculture to Suburban. Bingo. Our Board colleagues decided it’s now better to demolish this bridge. We don’t have much time and are circulating this petition. Please consider taking 1 minute to sign it:
Petition · Save the 1898 Bishop Road Bridge – United States · Change.org
Signed. Good luck! It’s a beautiful spot and bridge. I hope you can save it. And congratulations on your election to office.
from mr vlahos:
https://ronpaulinstitute.org/accepting-the-truth-about-ukrainian-casualties-is-the-only-real-path-to-peace/
from mr deisen:
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/the-predictable-collapse-of-pan-european?r=ddqut&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
from Sony Thang:
https://x.com/nxt888/status/1879624610804802000
and a rather heartrending come to capitalism moment from a soccer mom:
https://x.com/Eivor_Koy/status/1880065249514344523
scroll down to the vid of the white chick freakin out when she realises…after talking to chinese peopl…that “it doesnt hafta be this way!”.
lol.
Re Greenland, it’s an interesting idea, and I’m surprised to find I don’t hate it. If Greenlanders were given $1-2 million each *plus” land, I think it could be a good deal for them. But the US may not be the only suitor.