By Lambert Strether.
Bird Song of the Day
Brown Thrasher, Guernsey–Fish Ponds and Platte River Trail, Platte, Wyoming, United States.
Patient readers, there are many developments on the DOGE front, more moonsuit-worthy than yellow wader-worthy, or better yet, something lead-lined, and I must post on that. So this is an open thread! Where are the lawsuits?
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 AM:
AM writes: “A misty May evening in Somesville, Maine from a couple of years ago.” Lovely!
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Great picture from Maine!!
Thank you!
So calming. I can feel my shoulders relaxing!
Slightly tangential but definitely follows on from issues raised on here: to what extent are people experiencing significant “aggression” or “mistakes” by others in life in last few years (*cough*COVID*cough*)?
My elderly dad can’t afford to retire and still drives a lot. Thankfully he does high margin shoji work for people like a certain Ambassador to the Court of St James. The “how to mess with AI” post earlier was amusing to me because it turns out Google can’t downplay my Dad because practically nobody else in Europe is “in” with TPTB. HOWEVER, my dad is currently taking my advice on transferring a dashcam of the most dangerous driving he’s ever seen in 75 years into a format that might help the police. This is just the most recent example of a HUGE increase in “weirdness” – my dad now agrees with me that something has materially changed. Either people lost skills during COVID lockdowns, or there has been real neurological impairment due to repeated COVID infections.
Sooooo many people are being “gittish”. Is this due to atrophy of skills or real medical impairment? Just wondering, cause when doing my walk yesterday I almost got run over. This was a very very serious mistake by a driver and not one “out of the blue” – he seems to have “lost it” briefly and I wonder if I need to up my care level still further. (I never wear headphones when walking – I was mugged back in 2001 so spatial awareness is big issue). The former actuary in me is wondering about lawsuits incoming if the life tables have taken a sudden hit from left-field…….
Causation is going to be a problem there. It’s dangerous on the roads, seemingly more so than before. How about everybody and their brother buying a car with stimulus money. Not only does that add to increased congestion, but I’d wager that put more than a few people behind the wheel who might not belong there. In a separate bowl, mix Covid and particulate matter together with a pinch of PFAs and Glysophates, combine with above and bake in an aluminum tin. Sprinkle with freshly chopped micro plastics once it comes out of the oven.
The stimulus money thing is very true in USA but less so in UK. However, I am not discounting the general point you make: I have seen loads of people with “free cash” around here recently who have been menaces (via getting very expensive scooters etc).
As someone with longstanding depression and who although not clinically trained, knows how to read the literature via my PhD (and has enough mates to translate for me) I know full well there’s a bunch of “gut stuff” that could be affecting me (and thus others).
This is why I’m curious as to whether people who don’t have existing issues have felt “possibly COVID caused” issues….thanks for the input BTW.
Forgive me, if this seems to be forward, but the New York Times has rad repeated articles on depression since the covid pandemic took hold:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/12/well/long-covid-depression-symptoms-treatment.html
November 12, 2022
Covid Depression Is Real. Here’s What You Need to Know.
The risk of developing symptoms of depression remains high up to a year after you’ve recovered.
By Knvul Sheikh
Thanks. That’s not forward, it’s something else to help me.
I have tended to share (overshare?) and my latest evaluation suggests my long covid has exacerbated my depression. I’m just restarting the one antidepressant that ever worked – it’s colloquially known as the “mother of all antidepressants” in UK, Australia and Sweden. Unfortunately, despite being as old as me, it is produced in virtually all Euro countries, Asia-Pacific and other areas by ONE generic company who charge approx GBP200 per month for the “standard dose”. This is plain and simple price gouging since it costs cents to produce. Indeed (ironically) you can get it for 10% of this price from certain USA suppliers because there are a lot of US shrinks who have stubbornly refused to buy in to the SSRI/SNRI thing, leading to competition.
The UK, EU and Australasia want this drug gone because it has some awkward side effects which complicate cost-effectiveness calculations. These effects can be managed. But even a died-in-the-wool defender of the UK NHS and Aussie Medicare like me will call them out when they’re flat out wrong.
Doesn’t help that some people are even more invested in their vehicle as identity – and that identity is belligerent and entitled.
Doesn’t help that cars are hard to see out of and cameras give people the false sense they have more visibility.
In my local neighborhood, the poor side of it, the poor folk in old cars drive very well. They may also be worried about being stopped.
The DOT probably had some data but I suppose they are closed. (Had to use EDGAR earlier and had a timeout. Turns out Windows was asking for a restart before functioning but for a moment there it wasn’t unreasonable to wonder if the SEC was offline.
I wonder how many people without organic brain-cell damage have still been traumatized into a state of not-giving-a-fick, and show it on the roads and elsewhere.
I have never owned a car. The last time I even drove a car was in 1991. My reason for not having a car and not driving is stress-reduction. The state of rising hatred and Mad Maxness on the roads that I keep reading and hearing about makes me think I will never ever get a car and never ever drive if I can help it.
But I keep renewing my drivers license. I call it my don’t ask -don’t tell license. They don’t ask me if I still know how to drive, and I don’t tell them.
I’m actually quite similar. Here in UK you can get your licence at 17. I was oldest in my academic year and succeeded in getting my licence ASAP. Then…..I really didn’t care! I drove mum’s car when needed….but I never wanted my own car unlike my mates.
I NEVER owned a car until early 2010s when I was almost 40 and living abroad in Sydney and needed a car. Driving was frankly stressful to me, given the gittishness of everyone else.
I moved back to Europe in 2015 and have not owned a car since. Like you, I renew my licence. I’m pretty sure I can still drive safely. But I don’t want to put my long-covid-impaired brain under that strain. It is just an ID card.
That’s almost exactly when I last drove! I did have a car, but it was totalled when my landlord didn’t maintain the drains at the parking lot and it flooded. The insurance gave me a very good deal (more than the blue book value) which puzzled me. Years later I realised that the insurance adjustor and the garage must have conspired to rip off the insurance company. Like you, I kept renewing the license, but then Covid stopped me coming to NY, and renewing it by mail was too complicated.
the week i turned 16 was the same week covid quarantine started. so i was prevented from getting my license for an extra year. i was also prevented from getting a job for an extra year. but i also just didn’t want it. it is much more fun to bike everywhere. i try my hardest to bike/walk/public transit everywhere. the only reason i drive is when i am at my parents house and they need someone to drive my younger siblings (too young for a license) around. i’ve never owned a car nor do i ever want to own a car, but i am worried once i graduate college i will be forced to buy one. my older sister has been telling me about the horrors of car insurance – i so do not want that.
Beginning about half way into the pandemic, the one driving behavior I’ve seen a marked increase in is people treating stop lights as stop signs — they come to a complete stop at the light and then proceed while the light is still red, oblivious to any other vehicles present. I haven’t seen any accidents yet but I’ve seen several near misses.
Before the pandemic, I’d see this happen maybe once every few years. These days, it’s once every few weeks and I’m an infrequent, by U.S. standards, driver (I usually average about 2000 miles per year).
Speaking of DOGE, Stephanie Kelton has an interesting post on the DOGE takeover of the US Treasury payment system:
“I’m not sure most Americans appreciate the gravity of the situation. (In fact, I suspect they don’t.) Here’s a useful thread from Nathan Tankus that drives at some of what’s at stake. In addition to privacy concerns—Musk’s team now has access to some of our most sensitive data, including our Social Security numbers, bank details, etc.—there is a real risk that a rogue group of infiltrators could gain operational control over the payment systems.”
https://stephaniekelton.substack.com/p/will-the-ratings-agencies-react-to
It already has. DOGE itself IS that rogue group of infiltrators.
And here is a more detailed account of the coup in progress:
https://www.crisesnotes.com/elon-musk-wants-to-get-operational-control-of-the-treasurys-payment-system-this-could-not-possibly-be-more-dangerous/
DOGE is an advanced persistent threat?
How can we be sure that Musk isn’t inserting a bit of software to siphon off 0.00001 cents off of every transaction, like the movie “Office Space?”
(That might reduce the national debt over time, if it worked in reverse.)
I remember seeing that part of how DOGE has power is that Trump cleverly renamed an existing office to DOGE, but I can’t remember the original name of said office. Also, were those kids formally hired?
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/5117075-long-covid-chronic-disease/
When infection disease becomes chronic: Lessons from COVID and beyond
by Janet Golden, opinion contributor – 02/02/25 11:00 AM ET
Trump’s Shock and Awe campaign is working like a charm. Democratic running dogs are yelping everywhere, whelping nothing but more calls for better bromides, since they can’t change their policies. Money outvotes voters.
I admit I was looking forward to Trump’s chaos replacing Biden’s bumble-fest, but just a little is already too much. Will he hasten the empire’s decline, or just make it more obvious?
When the thumb-suckers talked about the Thucydides trap, I thought they saw the wrong one. What Thucydides described was an honored victor becoming a selfish imperial tyrant within decades, and losing everything within 50 years. USA’s so great it took us a little longer, but there’s no turning back. It’s not like the Democrats could change their policies . . .
If Trump runs the car with 330 million passengers into the ditch, under Hollywood rules every vehicle has to explode after leaving the roadbed, does he get a pass?
Well . . . I personally was NOT looking forward to Trump’s chaos replacing Biden’s bumble-fest. I knew that just a little would become already too much within a short time. ( I am impressed with how short a time its been. I admit I did not see the Musk Internal Self-Coup).
I did not want the chaos. That is why I voted for Harris.
I saw a couple stats about last. Not sure if legit. So ICE is supposedly everywhere deporting people. Last week, trump administration deported 7,000 people. Normal week during Biden administration was 15,000. But border patrol encounters with illegal crossers along southern border were down 94% last week. Like I said, I have no idea if these are legit. If those are remotely, true that is quite the turn around.
Where are the lawsuits?
Lawfare is the prerogative of the monied class who appear to be on board.
It would surprise me if agencies under the Executive remit had the resources or capacity to file suits against the Executive where whatever funds they used to permission their efforts would have to contend with the funding capability of Musks’ quickly broken Treasury. Or are you imagining there are other plaintiffs who might have standing?
“Lawsuits” move too slowly to address this fulminant necrotizing fasciitis.
Here is a link about a Senator who is doing a little something, anyway. He is called a “Democrat” but since the “Democrats” believe in nothing beyond upper class privilege, he is better viewed as a solo political entrepreneur who is doing this all on his own. Here is the link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/1igu7qw/yes_democrats_are_finally_fighting_fire_with_fire/
Various other individual political entrepreneur Senators could do versions of this.
Here is a link to a posting implying just how few Muskites there really are, meaning how few people would need to be rounded up and or terminated with extreme prejudice to slow the internal coup down. But given this few people involved, I wonder what kind of “inside help” already predeployed with government that the Muskites could count on to be brought into all the engine rooms and command centers so quickly.
Anyway, here is the link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/clevercomebacks/comments/1igtx63/you_have_committed_a_crime/#lightbox
If those names are known to some, they could be made known to others. What if they were made known to the readers of Naked Capitalism?
What if those people could be thoroughly doxed and dos-attacked in every single aspect of their private lives by Anonymous and by other action mob-swarms inspired by all the advice available at Global Guerillas?
Within weeks of this commentary, President Obama had decided it was necessary to undermine Chinese space exploration and development, and signed the Wolf Amendment:
https://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-thucydides-trap/
January 31, 2011
The Thucydides Trap
By Ben Schott
The theory that American anxiety about China’s increasing power might evolve into animosity and aggression.
(After Thucydides’s account of the causes of the Peloponnesian war.)
“For a superpower, dealing with the fast rise of a rich, brash competitor has always been an iffy thing,” The New York Times’s David E. Sanger wrote, * adding, “Just ask the British”:
Or ask Thucydides, the Athenian historian whose tome on the Peloponnesian War has ruined many a college freshman’s weekend. The line they had to remember for the test was his conclusion: “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.”
So while no official would dare say so publicly as President Hu Jintao bounced from the White House to meetings with business leaders to factories in Chicago last week, his visit, from both sides’ points of view, was all about managing China’s rise and defusing the fears that it triggers. Both Mr. Hu and President Obama seemed desperate to avoid what Graham Allison of Harvard University has labeled “the Thucydides Trap” – that deadly combination of calculation and emotion that, over the years, can turn healthy rivalry into antagonism or worse.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/weekinreview/23sanger.html
What is fascinating and distressing, is that prominent economist Dean Baker, who could write evenly or impartially about Chinese-American economic relations, has now started to demean China in every analysis.
Yes, it’s curious that the huffiest wokists have nothing against racist propaganda (is there any other kind?). They may be woke but they’re still Democrats, I guess. The ways we belittle Russia, China and North Korea would be utterly unacceptable against transsexuals, let alone women. (I’m guessing we can say ‘women’ again?)
And thanks for sharing the traditional definition of Thucydides’ trap. We got a twofer!
One night in Swamp-town
(Sung to the tune of, “One night in Bangkok” by Murray Head)
Melody
DC, Imperial City
But the city don’t know what the city is getting
The creme de la creme of the Tech world
In a show with everything, but due process
Time flies, doesn’t seem a minute
Since the Genocidal Ranch had executive privilege
All’s changed, don’t you know that when you
Play at this level there’s no chance of proper venue
It’s Greenland, or Panama, or South Africa
Or, the 51st state
CHORUS
One night in DC and the world’s Elon’s Oyster
The Feds are locked-out but the bloodletting ain’t free
You’ll find a RIF in every golden cloister
And no more pronouns like they/them/her/she
I can feel a summons sliding up to me
One clowns very like another when your heads down shuttin’ down servers, brother
(It’s a drag, it’s a bore, it’s really such a pity
To be lookin’ at job boards, not workin’ on Mars city)
WHATTYA MEAN?
You’ve seen one crowded, polluted, stinking agency …
(Tea, girls, warm and sweet, some are set up in the Muskian love suite)
Get Musk’ed, your sellin’ mugs to tourists
Whose every move’s among the purest
Elon gets his kicks above the waste-lined, no sunshine laws needed
One night in DC makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in swamp town and the tough guys tumble
Can’t be too careful with your company
I can hear the laughter from Putin and Xi
Georgetown’s gonna be a witness to the ultimate test of late-career fitness
This grips me more than would a muddy Potomac river
Or a declining empire …
Thank God I’m only watching the game, not controlling it
I don’t see Lindsey raging
Ukraine’s checkmate he’s contemplating …
On his watch, he would invite you
But the queens he likes would not excite you …
So, you better go back to your bars, your temples, your massage parlors
One night in DC and the world’s Elon’s Oyster
The Feds are locked-out but the bloodletting ain’t free
You’ll find a RIF in every golden cloister
And no more pronouns like they/them/her/she
I can feel a summons sliding up to me
One night in DC makes a donkey humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in swamp-town and the tough guys tumble
Can’t be too careful with your company
I can hear the laughter from Putin and Xi
DC, imperial *setting
And a suggestion: Maugham was, IIRC, an out and proud bisexual for his time. So, maybe some are set up in the Sammy Banks-Friedman suite, or the NXIVM suite.
All in all, I think Murray Head would have been proud. Kudos.
I struggled with that line; I do like your suggestion on the SBF suite.
Sam’s family is mongering for a pardon, I hear.
I’ve been waiting for an open thread to share this thought.
Snce Trump’s inauguration I’ve been seeing reports about all the money going to NGOs that appear to have been serving as obvious cutouts for the Democrats. In fact it’s looking like NGOs were the “action wing” of the Democrat party. No need for volunteers when Uncle Sugar will hire a friend’s org to overpay their friends to try to do whatever needs be done but in accordance with elaborate human resource rules about who should receive preference in hiring, how many color/gender people need to be promoted to even out management, etc. DEI was more about pushing action, no affirmation needed.
I did a lot of research into South African Apartheid when I was an older student in the ’80s. People who didn’t follow that struggle closely often don’t realize that one of the major reasons why Botha couldn’t end South Africa’s system of Apartheid was that it was a massive jobs program for over half a million whites. There’s no definitive breakdown of how many of South Africa’s one million government employees were involved in Apartheid enforcement but it was significant.
There were 33 million South Africans back then, less than five million were white. At the very least, ten percent of white South Africans were involved in the enforcement of Apartheid for a living. That’s a lot of economic disincentivisation slowing reform.
I would like to see us get rid of NGOs or at least subject them to stringent regulations and limits on pay. ?
Luckily, the GOP is working on reversing Biden lead restrictions, in case DOGE tries to use kryptonite against us. Maybe that’s what you’re referring to. These people are cartoon villains.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/03/republicans-lead-exposure-rules
For those interested in digging in to the USAID portfolio this .gov dash board is still operational
https://foreignassistance.gov/
And you can filter by funding agency, county, region, and more. Part of a transparency initiative so we will see how long it lasts.
This document leans into some of the dei/color tactics of USAID and is worth skimming. May not be as positive a take as the author assumes. The tools and links in the appendix’s are already mostly off line so history in the un-making
https://sites.tufts.edu/bennaimarkrowse/2025/02/03/nonviolent-collective-action-in-democratic-development-a-usaid-primer/
Elon wears his war chest investment like a crown
He calls his pet project DOGE
‘Cause he likes the name
And he searches Federal files in Humordor town
Elon, Elon likes his money trails
He finds a lot, they say
Spends his days counting
In a garage by the Capital Beltway
He was born down under in South Africa
When the New York Times said, “Thank God
He wasn’t born here and can’t run”
Oh, Donald Trump’s son is 18 today
And he shall be Elon
And he shall be a good proxy President man
And he shall be Elon
In tradition with the Trump family plan
And he shall be Elon
And he shall be a good proxy President man
He shall be Elon
Elon sells rockets in DC town
His family business thrives
Jesus! one blows up on any given day
Sits on the porch swing watching them fly
And aside from making cars, he wants to go to Mars
Leave the Earth far behind
Take a rocket and go sailing
While Elon, Elon slowly dies
And he shall be Elon
And he shall be a good proxy President man
And he shall be Elon
In tradition with the Trump family plan (whoo!}
And he shall be Elon
And he shall be a good proxy President man
He shall be Elon
Levon performed by Elton John
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEgEmTgAEUk
Go easy on our boy … he’s just another immigrant doing the job Americans won’t do.
While all this going on the FOX DOGE Clock has millions of MAGA idiots cheering Trump and Musk for fixing the debt and fighting waste.
” Where are the lawsuits?”
They are hanging up in the spare closet in the basement room where the Dry Powder is stored.
Thank you, Lambert. Once again, you take a hit for the team to muck through beacoup toxic shit and tell us how (and how badly) we are being screwed. We are so going to miss that in the near future.
Mini-Zeitgeist Report for Late January.
As mentioned above, the quality of the driving encountered on the streets has diminished over the last two or three years. Running red lights and left turns against the red light have been observed by your humble correspondent of late. Seen several times recently have been examples of “sloppy” driving by 18-wheeler steersmen. The main offense seen recently is the tractor vehicle not swinging out far enough when making turns. I have seen the rear wheels of reefer trailers bump over avoidable ‘neutral ground’ corners a lot more than in years gone by. That is something one remembers, if only for the entertainment value.
Walking into the local “Upscale Grocery Store,” as in they were the local food shop until someone in the upper echelons of this small family owned chain decided to emulate the Whole Food Store methodology, I was behind a “mixed” couple who were wearing their sleep wear to go shopping. Both had on fleecy drawstring pants and ‘fashion’ tee shirts. As he approached the door to the store, the male started shaking his right leg. Lo and behold, what looked like a Taurus 9mm pistol fell out of his pants leg. He leans over and snags the item and stuffs it in his pants pocket. By then I was laughing out loud at the scene. He looks over at me, and thinks for a second, and then shrugs. His female companion, just in front of him never noticed a thing. (She wore fluffy slippers that looked like tiny tigers on her feet.) What struck me was that the ‘event’ was dealt with like it was no big deal. People are normalizing concealed carry, with and without license.
What is worrying about the above is that the gun carrier displayed no “respect” for the firearm. That’s how accidents happen.
Stay safe. Use a proper holster.