Today’s Water Cooler: This is a very odd-feeling Monday, and I don’t want to edit a snippet for Google.
Friday, September 19, 2025
U.S. COVID-19 Contact Tracing Programs Designed for Failure, Despite Bloomberg Money; Why Can’t the U.S. Copy the Lessons of Hong Kong’s Success?
The US has turned to contact tracing as the latest panacea for slowing the spread of COVID-19. Major flaws in the design of these programs will limit their success.
Storks Hatch in UK for First Time in 600 Years – Why That’s Great News for British Wildlife
In this time of worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, stork chicks hatch in the United Kingdom for the first time in 600 years.
Brexit: Yet More Chicken
The same bad Brexit dynamics are very much in place.
The Economics and Politics of Social Democracy: A Reconsideration
The inescapable dilemma facing social democracy
Trump CFPB Appointees Use COVID-19 Crisis as Rationale to Weaken Consumer Protection
Trump appointees use the COVID-19 crisis to rollback consumer protections against financial predation put in place by the CFPB.
Big Oil Taking $1.9 Billion in CARES Act Tax Breaks Aimed at Helping Small Businesses in ‘Stealth Bailout’: Report
$1.9 billion in CARES Act tax breaks intended to allow small businesses to keep people employed are instead being funnelled to fossil fuel executives.
Because Culture Matters, There Is No One-Size-Fits-All Exit Strategy from Covid-19 Lockdowns
Quelle surprise! Local norms play a meaningful role in Covid-19 transmission, which has implications for how to end lockdowns.
Coronavirus Dashboard: Updating the State Petri Dishes of Democracy
Parsing some US coronavirus data.
2:00PM Water Cooler 5/15/2020
Today’s Water Cooler:
Contact Tracing Via Old Shoe-Leather Epidemiology While Spurning the Techno-Fix Fairy: How Hong Kong Quells COVID-19 Without Killing Civil Liberties
Countries jostle to surrender civil liberties to a techno-fix app to quell COVID-19, but should instead heed Hong Kong’s low-tech lesson.
