2:00PM Water Cooler 2/25/2025

By Lambert Strether.

Patient readers, matters occurrent have prevented me from organizing a graceful departure, as your good wishes and [lambert blushes modestly] my tenure warrant. I apologize. (The main overloader is that there’s too damn many things to write about that I think you need to know. The secondary overloaded is that I am simultaneously changing my residence, which brings its own stressors).

I will write the farewell Water Cooler on Friday of this week.

Today I am going to have add orts and scraps an hour or so later than I usually do, so I can slide a final fundraiser for my gold retirement watch in between the two parts. (Long-time readers will recall that Water Cooler “mini-fundraisers” pay for work already done, unlike Naked Capitalism fundraisers, which pay for work to be done in the future.) It would be odd indeed for me to work the whole of 2024… for nothing but pure gratification, great though that is. The tip jar is below.

On Wednesday and Thursday, in between news items, I will thank as many people as I can for the various parts of Water Cooler they advanced (like today, whoever introduced me to “Trading Economics”).

–lambert

Bird Song of the Day

American Robin, Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. An ensemble!

* * *

In Case You Might Miss…

1. Lambert’s last week (schedule).
2. Git along little DOGEbags.
3. NSA sex chats (!).
4. Luigi Mangione appears in court.

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

* * *

Trump Administration

Hmm:

Scrolling Getty and couldn't help but notice this photo of a huge bruise on Trump's hand today pic.twitter.com/LY9LFypsFF

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2025

The White House says it’s from “shaking hands all day every day.” Plausible?

“Kash Patel privately agreed to hire an experienced deputy FBI director. Then Trump picked a loyalist” [Independent]. “FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly privately agreed with an FBI agent advocacy group to install an active Special Agent to serve as deputy director – only to have President Donald Trump choose an inexperienced and controversial loyalist. Members of the FBI Agents Association, a nonprofit that supports and advocates for more than 14,000 active and retired agents, received a memo, obtained by NBC News, that claimed Patel had agreed with the group that, ‘the FBI Deputy Director should continue to be an on-board, active Special Agent— as has been the case for 117 years for many compelling reasons, including operational expertise and experience, as well as the trust of our Special Agent population.’ Patel, who was sworn in as head of the federal law enforcement agency last week, is a known Trump loyalist who has no prior experience in the FBI.” • Bongino is quite the character!

“Delay to Jeffrey Epstein Files Being Released Raises Questions” [Newsweek]. “The Trump administration will likely continue to face pressure from his supporters to release the list.” • And what about JFK, RFK, and MLK?

DOGE

“DOGE Is Working on Software That Automates the Firing of Government Workers” [WIRED]. So the DOGEbags get into DOD and what do they do?

Engineers for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, are working on new software that could assist mass firings of federal workers across government, sources tell WIRED.

The software, called AutoRIF, which stands for Automated Reduction in Force, was first developed by the Department of Defense more than two decades ago. Since then, it’s been updated several times and used by a variety of agencies to expedite reductions in workforce. Screenshots of internal databases reviewed by WIRED show that DOGE operatives have accessed AutoRIF and appear to be editing its code. There is a repository in the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) enterprise GitHub system titled “autorif” in a space created specifically for the director’s office—where Musk associates have taken charge—soon after Trump took office. Changes were made as recently as this weekend.

So far, federal agency firings have been conducted manually, with HR officials combing through employee registries and lists provided by managers, sources tell WIRED. Probationary employees—those who were recently hired, promoted, or otherwise changed roles—have been targeted first, as they lack certain civil service protections that would make them harder to fire. Thousands of workers have been terminated over the last few weeks across multiple agencies. With new software and the use of AI, some government employees fear that large-scale terminations could roll out even more quickly.

While DOGE could use AutoRIF as the DOD built it, multiple OPM sources speculated that the Musk-affiliated engineers could be building their own software on top of, or using code from, AutoRIF. In screenshots viewed by WIRED, Riccardo Biasini, a former engineer at Tesla and a director at The Boring Company, has seemingly been tasked with pruning AutoRIF on GitHub, with his name attached to the repository. “Remove obsolete versions of autorif,” one file description authored by a user with Biasini’s username on GitHub says.

Biasini has also been listed as the main point of contact for the government-wide email system created by the Trump administration from within OPM to solicit resignation emails from federal workers.

Because Biasini did such a good job on the email system? The servers with as much security as the servers Hillary installed in her bathroom in Chattaqua? The servers Elon then used to flood the entire Federal Government with spam the White House had to walk back? And we still don’t know who’s actually running DOGE! Anyhoo, see this Executive Order, “Implementing The President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Workforce Optimization Initiative“:

Fits right in. I think the DOGEbags are lousy software engineers, but as social engineers? Brilliant! (I had to leave various posts on the cutting room floor with the common theme that the “coup” was over; but whatever we might call what’s going on, I think the above should make us very, very dubious about that.

* * *

“Federal technology staffers resign rather than help Musk and DOGE” [Associated Press]. “More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to ‘dismantle critical public services.’ ‘We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,’ the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. ‘However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.’ The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump’s administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them.”

“Nearly 40% of contracts canceled by Musk’s DOGE are expected to produce no savings” [Associated Press]. “The Department of Government Efficiency, run by Trump adviser Elon Musk, published an updated list Monday of nearly 2,300 contracts that agencies terminated in recent weeks across the federal government. Data published on DOGE’s ‘Wall of Receipts’ shows that more than one-third of the contract cancellations, 794 in all, are expected to yield no savings. That’s usually because the total value of the contracts has already been fully obligated, which means the government has a legal requirement to spend the funds for the goods or services it purchased and in many cases has already done so. ‘It’s like confiscating used ammunition after it’s been shot when there’s nothing left in it. It doesn’t accomplish any policy objective,’ said Charles Tiefer, a retired University of Baltimore law professor and expert on government contracting law. ‘Their terminating so many contracts pointlessly obviously doesn’t accomplish anything for saving money.'”

“Judge Questions Constitutionality of Musk’s Cost-Cutting Operation” [New York Times]. “‘Based on the limited record I have before me [ouch!], I have some concerns about the constitutionality of U.S.D.S.’s structure and operations,’ Judge Kollar-Kotelly said at a hearing in Federal District Court in Washington. She expressed particular concern that it violated the appointments clause of the Constitution, which requires leaders of federal agencies to be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Mr. Musk was neither nominated nor confirmed…. The judge also indicated that she had serious concerns about how the organization is being run…. At the hearing, Judge Kollar-Kotelly repeatedly asked a lawyer for the government, Bradley Humphreys, to identify the service’s administrator. He was unable to answer her…. ‘It does seem to me if you have people that are not authorized to carry out some of these functions that they’re carrying out that does raise an issue,’ [Kollar-Kotelly] said. ‘I would hope that by now we would know who is the administrator, who is the acting administrator and what authority do they have?'” • Or we could just read Twitter, uh, sorry, X!

* * *

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!

So if I'm reading this correctly, the White House (controlled by Trump) and the State Department (controlled by Rubio) approved these aid payments to poor people. Then some nerds hired by Elon kept stopping them.

So basically they created an entire new Deep State? pic.twitter.com/oiMFVyHHM6

— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) February 25, 2025

* * *

“Trump administration tells agencies they can ignore Musk order on email reply” [WaPo]. “The Trump administration has told federal agency leaders that they can ignore the public decree from Elon Musk to effectively fire employees who do not send in bullet-point summaries of their work last week, according to three people familiar with the matter, a break with the billionaire who has exerted significant power to slash the 2.3-million-person federal workforce. The Office of Personnel Management, a federal agency that functions as the government’s HR department, delivered the news to agency chief human capital officers on a call midday Monday, according to one of the people, an agency official on the call, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations. Another person briefed on the call said that OPM is also looking at weekly reporting for government departments. But the person said that OPM was unsure what to do with the emails of employees who responded so far and had ‘no plans’ [lying, probably] to analyze them. Later in the day, though, Trump suggested nonresponders could still be terminated, while Musk wrote on X they would be given ‘another chance’ to write back before being fired. In a written memo, OPM wrote that employees should respond but added, ‘Agency heads may exclude personnel from this expectation at their discretion and should inform OPM of the categories of the employees excluded and reasons for exclusion.’ ‘It is agency leadership’s decision as to what actions are taken,’ the memo said of those who did not respond.” • What a mess. Commentary:

1. First, if you think that government employees aren’t already setting goals, doing performance reviews and being held accountable.. they are. And if you’ve ever lamented that the gov’t has too much bureaucracy – HR is a part of that bureaucracy!

— Sean Casten (@SeanCasten) February 24, 2025

“Elon’s Email Demand Is Being Met With ‘Very Rude’ Flood of Spam” [Rolling Stone]. “Online, people participating in the trend [to send their own five bullets to hr@opm.gov] have both sent their own versions of emails, or drafted different examples they would send if they were federal employees. But they’re not the only ones. Two sources familiar with the matter, including a Trump administration official, tell Rolling Stone that the replies to the recent Musk OPM email have been flooded with pranks and, in the words of the Trump official, ‘very rude’ emails listing fake, vulgar ‘accomplishments,’ and even sending links to graphic images of sex and scatological content.” • Which the email system that the DOGEbag brain geniuses set up at OPM can’t filter for? What a shame.

“Federal workers sue over Musk’s threat to fire if they don’t explain accomplishments” [ABC]. “The updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to The Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs pursued by Musk and President Donald Trump, including any connected to the email distributed by the Office of Personnel Management on Saturday. The office, which functions as a human resources agency for the federal government, said employees needed to detail five things that they did last week by end of day on Monday. ‘No OPM rule, regulation, policy, or program has ever, in United States history, purported to require all federal workers to submit reports to OPM,’ said the amended complaint, which was filed on behalf of unions, businesses veterans, and conservation organizations represented by the group State Democracy Defenders Fund. It called the threat of mass firings “one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.'” • Fershuggeneh media never give cites. Can some kind reader drop a link to the filing?

Spook Country

“The NSA’s Secret Sex Chats” [Christopher F. Rufo, Hannah Grossman, City Journal]. “We have cultivated sources within the National Security Agency—one current employee and one former employee—who have provided chat logs from the NSA’s Intelink messaging program. According to an NSA press official, ‘All NSA employees sign agreements stating that publishing non-mission related material on Intelink is a usage violation and will result in disciplinary action.’ Nonetheless, these logs, dating back two years, are lurid, featuring wide-ranging discussions of sex, kink, polyamory, and castration…. According to our sources, the sex chats were legitimized as part of the NSA’s commitment to ‘diversity, equity and inclusion.’ Activists within the agency used LGBTQ+ ’employee resource groups’ to turn their kinks and pathologies into official work duties…. In this case, ‘diversity’ was not a byword for racialism, but rather a euphemism for sex talk. Last January, chatroom members discussed their practice of polyamory, or ‘ethical non-monogamy.’ ‘[A] polycule is a polyamorous group,” one employee explained. ‘A is my [girlfriend], and B-G are her partners. . . . then B&C are dating but not C&D, nor E, F, or G with any of the others, though there are several MWB (metas-with-benefits) connections.’ Another employee claimed to be part of a nine-member ‘polycule,’ adding that ‘some of our friends are practically poly-mers, with all the connected compounds.’ … At other times, the conversations became explicit.” • At work? Really? The weird thing is that Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice are placeholders in crypotography. As well. One could read this as DEI kneejerkism and prurience. One could also read this as an opening gun, and that’s how I see it; I’ve been wondering if the intelligence community would be immune from Trunp’s gentle ministrations. Apparently not.

Realignment and Legitimacy

“The long wait for a glimpse of Luigi” [The Verge]. “A consistent narrative in mainstream media reports is that Mangione has amassed a fan club of rabid young women, but mostly people are well-behaved here. The crowd is fairly diverse: people of all races and ages, though most appear under 50 years old…. Women outnumber men, but there is a strong showing across the spectrum — young people who skipped school, working professionals who took the day off, a woman who runs a Mangione fan account on Instagram. Three people ranging from 18 to 21 years old tell me they flew in from Chicago just to be here, curious about the court proceedings but also wanting to see with their own eyes the person who has become something of a folk hero. ‘There’s a lot of gun violence and there’s not much of a reaction, but [Mangione] is apparently a huge deal,’ one of them, who asked not to be named, said questioningly. ‘The upper class is feeling threatened,’ their friend added. One man waiting who also asked not to be named said he told his wife he was going shopping and came to the hearing instead, hoping to snag a seat inside the courtroom. (He did not.) He told me he was concerned about Mangione receiving a fair trial and that he wanted to see what the atmosphere was like. He has sent Mangione letters and even books, he told me. Like other supporters, he wore green to show support — a reference to the Nintendo character Mangione shares a name with.” • Something happening out in the biomass….

More green:

Free Luigi’ billboard in lower Manhattan.

Installed the evening before Mangione's next court appearance. pic.twitter.com/O8LLvoX3wG

— PatinaP (@dezgn4u) February 21, 2025

“Donald Trump Death Penalty Order Sparks Huge Luigi Mangione Donation” [Newsweek]. “An anonymous donor gave $11,000 to Mangione’s defense fund. The donation is the largest listed on the GiveSendGo fundraiser. The donor said the death penalty should not be ‘politicized,’ but they are concerned that it will continue to be, given Trump’s executive order. ‘I am also concerned about the severe infringement on the defendant’s right to a fair trial and due process, particularly since his juries are effectively pre-tainted,’ the donor said.”

“Luigi Mangione lawyer says Mayor Adams publicly discussed undisclosed evidence” [Gothamist]. “In her remarks to the judge, Agnifilio said she was shocked that the NYPD chief of detectives and Mayor Adams were able to sit down with HBO and discuss evidence and their theories of the case for a documentary. The prosecutors have yet to turn over key evidence – including a journal they allege is his ‘manifesto’ – that Adams at the NYPD official discussed on HBO, Agnifilio said. ‘We have never been provided copies,; she said.” • Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania:

BREAKING: According to a motion filed today by Luigi Mangione’s Pennsylvania attorney, regarding his arrest at a McDonald’s in Altoona: After almost 17 minutes of unlawful detention and interrogation, “Officer Fox of the police department finally read the defendant his Miranda… pic.twitter.com/5cv2s2sn0Z

— The Luigi Case (@LuigiCaseFiles) February 25, 2025

“Lawyer for alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO killer Luigi Mangione seeks to suppress weapon, ‘manifesto’ notebook evidence in case” [Newsday]. “During the hearing, Friedman Agnifilo argued that her client’s right to a fair trial was being undermined because the U.S. Department of Justice prohibited her client from attending a hearing in Pennsylvania, where he’s being charged with weapons possession and having fake identification, the least serious of the charges. However, the crucial physical evidence tying Mangione to the crime — a ghost gun with ballistics that allegedly match shell casings from the scene and a notebook with self-incriminating writings against the health care industry — were found in a bookbag that Mangione had with him when he was arrested. ‘We are concerned that Luigi’s constitutional rights were violated in Pennsylvania and there are serious search and seizure issues that will be litigated in that case,’ she said. ‘It’s alleged that Luigi had a gun on him and had other property on him and they are going to use that against him.’ Also inside the bag, police found a notebook with Mangione’s writings, described as a three-page manifesto in which he complained about America’s health care system, calling health insurance companies ‘parasites.'” • Tsk!

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!

Sequencing

Another one:

Watch this near collision at O’Hare as a plane comes into a landing only to quickly rise up to avoid hitting another plane taxiing in front of it. @TheRebelPatient
pic.twitter.com/sMTZkIHtxn

— Marlene Robertson (@marlene4719) February 25, 2025

People like Bitecofer say it’s MAGA, but I think the timeline is wrong. I think it’s loss of executive function due to repeated Covid reinfection (though, to be sure, institutional factors can reinforce the brain damage).

* * *

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater
This week[1] CDC February 17	Last week[2] CDC (until next week):
Variants [3] CDC February 15	Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC February 15
Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data February 24:	National [6] CDC February 20:
Positivity
National[7] Walgreens February 24:	Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic February 15:
Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC February 3:	Variants[10] CDC February 3
Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC January 25:	Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC January 25:

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) Down, 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) Weird plateau without exponential growrht

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.

[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.

[8] (Cleveland)

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Uptick.

[10] (Travelers: Variants). Don’t know what the dominance of XEC is all about,

[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.

[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.

Stats Watch

Lambert here: An alert reader recommended “Trading Economics” to me some years ago, and its a great source. I am very grateful. Raise your hand in comments for a shout-out.

Manufacturing: “United States Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The composite manufacturing index in the US Fifth District rose to 6 in February of 2025 from -4 in the previous month, firmly ahead of market expectations of -3. It was the first expansion following fifteen consecutive months of declines underscored by the index, in line with the traction for factory activity noted in other main manufacturing hubs of the United States.”

* * *

Manufacturing: “ANA to buy at least 77 jets from Boeing, Airbus, Embraer in rare deal” [Seattle Times]. “ANA Holdings Inc. will spend about $14.5 billion to buy 77 aircraft from Boeing, Airbus and Embraer in a rare simultaneous deal with the world’s top three commercial planemakers. Japan’s largest airline will buy at least 18 widebody 787-9 Dreamliners and 12 737-8 Max single-aisle jets from Boeing, it said Tuesday. It will also add 27 Airbus A321neos, including three of the XLR longest-range single-aisle planes, and 20 E190-E2 regional jets from Brazil’s Embraer, it said…. The purchase underscores ANA’s ambitions to exceed its pre-pandemic fleet size by 2030 and capitalize on the boom in global air travel demand…. ANA’s order gives a much-needed boost for Boeing from one of its best customers as the planemaker tries to shake off a tumultuous period that’s included management upheaval and delivery delays after a near-catastrophic 737 Max door blowout triggered regulatory scrutiny. Boeing has also been on the back foot in Asia, where it’s come second place in a series of key sales campaigns including for Cathay Pacific Airways, Japan Airlines and Eva Airways. However it’s recently picked up momentum, securing deals with China Airlines and Thai Airways International.”

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 31 Fear (previous close: 35 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 44 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Feb 24 at 2:04:38 PM ET.

Musical Interlude

I’ve never actually listened to this before:

Gallery

Point:

Turner, The Scarlet Sunset pic.twitter.com/7wnePmpdVU

— Impressions (@impression_ists) February 22, 2025

Counterpoint:

Good morning with Monet's Sunrise pic.twitter.com/hy3eeObLWl

— Impressions (@impression_ists) January 19, 2025

News of the Wired

“The Wrongs of Thomas More (Wrong 5)” [Neal Stephenson, Graphomane]. He’s right, this is a rabbit hole. Here, at least, is some context: “Who is More writing this for? Definitely not a novelist 500 years in the future who is curious about the etymology of ‘wrong.’ This is for a small and select audience, many of whom More probably knows by name. The population of England and Wales at this point is maybe three and a half million: a good-sized city in the United States today. Of those, only a small percentage can read. Those people—the literate nobles, clergy, and city dwellers—are More’s only possible audience for this Dyaloge. The whole vibe of the document is precious, coy, cliquish. Clearly, everyone who reads it knows exactly who ‘the man we now talk of’ is. It’s not even necessary to mention his name; to do so would just be tacky. The person More’s arguing with is addressed through multiple layers of indirection. More doesn’t talk to his counterpart straight out. Instead there’s an unidentified ‘messenger’ who goes back and forth between More and his contact at ‘the university’ where the contact has been in touch with ‘your friend.’ Again, it all reeks of some kind of controversy within an in-group of people who all know each other but don’t want to name names. More is staking out a position here. If he’s not already Lord Chancellor, he suspects he’s likely to be soon. The Protestant Reformation is creating trouble all over the place. He knows which side he’s on. The King of England is a Trumpian figure. More works for him as an attack dog going after the likes of Martin Luther. He’s a John Bolton type: a sincere true believer who gets recruited because he’s passionate about what he believes. But, precisely because he’s more sincere than his boss, it’s not going to end well. Now a priest-turned-heretic has been arrested, probably tortured—possibly while More was nearby—and convicted, leading to the first burning at the stake of an English Reformation heretic. Several more such burnings will come soon, all of them under More’s jurisdiction as Lord Chancellor. More has to stake out a position, and he has to do so ‘publicly’ where the ‘public’ in this case is a few thousand literate Englishmen who actually care about such things.” • Sounds like the political class of today. And speaking of names it is not necessary to mention–

“Ketamine Is Probably More Neurotoxic Than You Think” [Desmolysium]. “In sum, we can say that ketamine used at “party doses” is almost certainly neurotoxic but the jury is still out on whether ketamine at therapeutic doses is or not.” • Hmm.

* * *

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: “Walked out to this the other day, the largest wood railroad trestle in the world, and inactive for a long time. It was called the Impossible Railroad, as there were so many logistical challenges. We passed through half a dozen long tunnels along the way. A number of passenger cars are on sidings painted perhaps by Krylon school of art graduates?” Just for today, I’m going to declare this trestle an honorary pant, because it’s made out of wood.

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