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Patient readers, I’m a little behind the eight ball on schedule, here, but I will certainly get to Kamala’s visit to the spice store! –lambert
By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Look for the Helpers
During a typhoon (DK):
During the super typhoon #Yagi in #Vietnam, many car drivers drove very slowly to shield motorbikes and people from the strong wind (because the strong wind trapped them on the road or on the bridge, they could be blown away if they tried to move). Wanted to hug everyone tightly. pic.twitter.com/rW8ZfYCank
— Phan Kim Thanh ⁷ ( ´･ω･) ~ Ꮚ ( •᷄ɞ•᷅ ) (@Alzheimer_13) September 8, 2024
I was pleasantly surprised to hear the other day how many people helped persons with baby carriages up stairs; my faith in humanity was somewhat restored. Has anybody ever seen similar behavior in the US? Of course, we don’t have typhoons, but tornadoes and hurricanes; it might not be possible to give the same sort of help.
* * *
My email address is down by the plant; please send examples of there (“Helpers” in the subject line). In our increasingly desperate and fragile neoliberal society, everyday normal incidents and stories of “the communism of everyday life” are what I am looking for (and not, say, the Red Cross in Hawaii, or even the UNWRA in Gaza). –>
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
* * *
2024
Less than one hundred days to go!
Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:
I would say the bloom is off the rose for Harris, except for an upward blip in Georgia. Looks like the enormous liberalgasm afte the Convention was confined to party loyalists. The Kamala campaign must be sore as boils Trump is within striking distance, let alone tied with them. What could account for it? Perhaps that’s why the pivot to RussiaGate. Remember, however, that all the fluctuations — in fact, all the leads, top to bottom — are within the margin of error.
“Toplines: September 2024 Times/Siena Poll of Registered Voters Nationwide” [New York Times]”
If this is a “Change vs. more of the same” election, and the voters want change — how could they not? — then Kamala is in real trouble.
“New Poll Suggests Harris’s Support Has Stalled After a Euphoric August” [New York Times]. Commentary on the Siena poll (above). “[T]he poll nonetheless finds that [Trump] has significant advantages in this election — and they might just be enough to put him over the top. He’s more popular than before. Overall, 46 percent of likely voters say they have a favorable view of the former president. That’s down a tick from our last national poll, when 47 percent had a favorable view, but it still makes him more popular than he was in 2016 or 2020. He has an advantage on the issues. We asked voters a two-part question. First, what’s the most important issue to your vote? Second, do you think Ms. Harris or Mr. Trump is better on that issue? By that measure, Mr. Trump has a five-point lead on the issue that matters most to voters, whatever that may be for them. He occupies the center. A near majority of voters say Mr. Trump is ‘not too far’ to the left or right on the issues, while only around one-third say he’s ‘too far to the right.’ Nearly half of voters, in contrast, say Ms. Harris is too far to the left; only 41 percent say she’s ‘not too far either way.’” • The 100-days election works against Harris, too. If she stumbles, badly, once, she could be a goner. From these numbers, the Trump campaign has laid a very solid foundation. (Maybe voters apply a “Trump Discount” to compensate for the puffery. If he says “Kamala’s a communist,” they discount that by, say, 90%, and still come out with the result that she’s left. Of course, it’s ludicrous to think Kamala’s anything like a communist — do you hear her calling for working class control of the means of production? — but nevertheless, the charge sticks, even given the discount.)
“Harris falling behind among male voters in key states” [The Hill]. “New polls show Vice President Harris faces a major challenge in winning over male voters and is losing men by a bigger margin than she’s winning women in key states such as Pennsylvania, Nevada and North Carolina…. Trump’s campaign has tried to exploit the gender divide by saturating battleground states with advertising focused on the economy, inflation, illegal immigration and crime, designed to appeal to younger male voters. ‘It’s battle of the sexes,’ said Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University, regarding the trend of male voters turning toward Trump and away from Harris. ‘The feeling is that for every advance women make, men necessarily lose.’ ‘In some instances, the statistics bear out this apprehension among men,’ he added, pointing to the declines in the number of men attending college as well as some of their earning power.’” • Important that this is swing state data. I wonder what’s happening with the marginal women who are swinging toward Trump and not Harris.
* * *
* * *
Kennedy (I): This is absolutely terrific:
#MAHA Shake@DaRealAmberRose pic.twitter.com/p5ivjPA98k
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) September 8, 2024
As readers know, I love stupid humor. And this is really stupid!
Our Famously Free Press
“Trump’s real Project 2025 was written for him in Moscow by Vladimir Putin’s men” [Will Bunch, Philadelphia Inquirer]. • I read the whole thing. Yes, Project 2025 was written by Heritage Foundation goons and not in Moscow by Putin’s agents (let’s not be sexist, mkay?). Bunch is recycling RussiaRussiaRussia, Now With Influencers!™. It’s as if Bunch thinks conservatives can’t come up with bad ideas all on their own. Or oppo. Unlike AIPAC influencers, of course, who have nothing but good ideas and never do oppo (and if you want to see an example of an effective, professional foreign influence operation, one that actually drives US policy and defeats US politicians, see Mearsheimer and Walt’s “The Israel Lobby,” which makes everything liberal Democrat demon figure Putin has done look like the pissant, minor league diddleysh*t that it is). Sheesh.
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
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Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); 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, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
* * *
Look for the Helpers
Mask blocs are great, and kudos to those who set them up:
We are working together to source Aura masks! This is an exciting collaboration where half the fun has been in getting to know each other 😄 We haven’t won the auction that we’re aiming for yet, but we will likely need at least $4000! pic.twitter.com/0XGV1d1hkE
— Charlotte Mask Bloc (@CLT_Mask_Bloc) September 7, 2024
Maybe set one up in Nassau County? Just a thought…
Airborne Transmission
“Upper-room ultraviolet light and negative air ionization to prevent tuberculosis transmission” [PLOS Medicine]. From 2009, still germane. From the Abstract: “We evaluated the efficacy of upper-room ultraviolet (UV) lights and negative air ionization for preventing airborne TB transmission using a guinea pig air-sampling model to measure the TB infectiousness of ward air.” But: “Upper-room UV lights and negative air ionization each prevented most airborne TB transmission detectable by guinea pig air sampling. Provided there is adequate mixing of room air, upper-room UV light is an effective, low-cost intervention for use in TB infection control in high-risk clinical settings.” • Underlining that UV alone is not sufficient.
Transmission: Covid
Because of course:
Oh no, it happened. Someone posted about their whole camp having the “Burning man flu”.
— Miles W. Griffis (@mileswgriffis) September 8, 2024
Airborne Transmission: Mpox
“Contact Tracing for Mpox Clade II Cases Associated with Air Travel — United States, July 2021–August 2022” [Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC]. This sounds re-assuring, but here is the key paragraph:
CDC adapted the mpox community exposure risk assessment§ to define an exposure risk zone for aircraft contact investigations. In general, air passengers seated within a 3-foot radius (one seat in any direction) of the potentially infectious person on flights of ≤3 hours’ duration or within a 6-foot radius (two seats in any direction) on flights of >3 hours’ duration were considered to be in the exposure risk zone.
But that’s not how airflow in airplanes works (CDC is still in the grip of droplet dogma, where coughing is seen as the key mode of distance, and hence a radius is established for how long the droplets will be “in the air”). Sadly, I do not have the study that shows this to hand — it’s in that thread somewhere — but bug me about it if you want it.
Vaccines: Covid
“The gut microbiota modifies antibody durability and booster responses after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination” [Journal of Translational Medicine]. From the Abstract: “The findings of this study underscored the potential interaction between the gut microbiome and the longevity/boosting effect of antibodies following vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. The identification of specific microbial associations suggests the prospect of microbiome-based strategies for enhancing vaccine efficacy.” • Interesting!
Elite Maleficence
CDC messing about with maps, again:
A map I never link to, for obvious reasons (nobody travels or lives in a State, with respect to Covid; they travel to or live in a city or town, a place with a wastewater plant).
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Lambert here: The figures look mildly encouraging for now, but I would expect an immediate worsening after Labor Day travel kicks in, along with grade schools, high schools, and colleges starting up. Stay safe out there!
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
Wastewater
★ This week[1] CDC August 27
Last Week[2] CDC (until next week):
Variants [3] CDC August 31
Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC August 31
Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data September 6:
National [6] CDC August 17:
Positivity
National[7] Walgreens September 3:
Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic August 24:
Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC August 19:
Variants[10] CDC August 19:
Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC August 31:
Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC August 31:
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) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Keeps spreading. NOTE The date seems to be wrong, but the number of sites has changed so this is new.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular. XDV.1 flat.
[4] (ED) Down, but worth noting that Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Flat, that is, no longer down.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.
[7] (Walgreens) Big drop, but all those white states showing no change: Labor Day weekend reporting issues?
[8] (Cleveland) Dropping.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn’t even run back to 1/21/23, as it used to, but now starts 1/1/24. There’s also no way to adjust the time range. CDC really doesn’t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that’s why the shape of the curve has changed.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) What the heck is LB.1?
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up. If the United States is like Canada, deaths are several undercounted:
Tara Motarity has confirmed our fears.Most provinces are only reporting about 20% of covid deaths.Maybe even less.Which suggests the deaths are close to 5 times to 6+ times the reported figures.Nova Scotia has reported 270 so far this year. It’s actually 1,325-1,700 so far. pic.twitter.com/6xF6SREyKB
— Dr.Robert Strang (@DSlayer520) September 2, 2024
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
There are no official statistics of interest today.
* * *
Supply Chain: “The largest dockworkers’ union in the U.S. is signaling that it’s more focused right now on preparing for a strike than on getting to the bargaining table” [Logistics Report, Wall Street Journal]. “The International Longshoremen’s Association concluded meetings last week aimed at finalizing plans for the union’s first walkout targeting East Coast and Gulf Coast ports in 50 years. …[T]he expiration of the current contract is now just three weeks away and no negotiations on a new agreement are on the calendar. Union President Harold Daggett says the ILA won’t sit down with employers unless they agree to a 77% pay increase over six years, a big jump over the 32% wage gains that the union for West Coast dockworkers won last year.”
Manufacturing: “Machinists union agrees on tentative contract deal with Boeing” [Seattle Times (PI)]. “But many workers said the deal falls short of their demands, leaving the possibility of work stoppage on the table. The 11th-hour agreement — reached at about 2:30 a.m. Sunday, with the news publicly released a couple of hours later — will avoid a strike if a majority of the union’s members ratify the deal, as recommended by International Association of Machinists District 751 President Jon Holden, who led the negotiations. The contract offers workers a 25% general wage increase, enhanced retirement benefits, fewer hours of mandatory overtime work and increased parental leave. And, in what could prove a historic element of the contract for this region, Boeing offered a first-of-its-kind commitment that if it launches an all-new plane in the next four years, that jet will be built in the Puget Sound area by the local workforce.” • Why not a seat on the board? Or two seats? And 25% looks a little ambitious beside the ILU’s 77%,
Tech: “MI6 and CIA using generative AI to combat tech-driven threat actors” [The Register]. “‘We are now using AI, including generative AI, to enable and improve intelligence activities – from summarization to ideation to helping identify key information in a sea of data,’ the pair wrote in the Financial Times. ‘We are training AI to help protect and ‘red team’ our own operations to ensure we can still stay secret when we need to. We are using cloud technologies so our brilliant data scientists can make the most of our data, and we are partnering with the most innovative companies in the US, UK and around the world,’ they added.” • Let me know how that works out…
Tech: Business model:
What a beautiful business… zero venture capital, most successful creator platform by a mile … pic.twitter.com/eDyEkT4mZJ
— sam lessin 🏴☠️ (@lessin) September 8, 2024
Entertainment: “The Palace Coup at the Magic Kingdom” [New York Times]. Or, as some like to call it, Mauschwitz: “For a company that bills its theme parks as the ‘Happiest Place on Earth,’ Disney’s corporate headquarters have long been anything but — a hotbed of intrigue and power struggles. Chapek’s former chief of staff told people the company’s sixth-floor executive suite was a ‘snake pit.’ Iger ascended almost two decades ago, after a power struggle between Michael Eisner, a long-serving CEO, and Roy E. Disney, Walt Disney’s nephew and a Disney board member. By that time, Eisner had already elevated and then dispatched two handpicked successors, Jeffrey Katzenberg, who became co-founder of DreamWorks, and Michael Ovitz, once the most powerful agent in Hollywood. Iger, who started his career as a weather forecaster on a cable channel in upstate New York, had vowed to never follow in Eisner’s footsteps.” • Nice people!
Entertainment: “Disney-obsessed couple lose lawsuit to get back into exclusive Club 33” [Los Angeles Times]. “As members of Disney’s exclusive Club 33, Scott and Diana Anderson visited the two Anaheim theme parks 60 to 80 times a year. The private club, with its wood-paneled trophy room and other amenities, was the center of their social life. They brought friends, acquaintances and business associates. As a couple, they went on the Haunted Mansion ride nearly 1,000 times. The club’s yearly dues were $31,500, and with travel and hotel expenses, the Arizona couple were spending close to $125,000 annually to get their Disney fix. All of it came to an end in 2017, when Disney revoked their membership in the club after an allegation that Scott Anderson was drunk in public. Diana Anderson, a hard-core Disney aficionado since childhood, called it ‘a stab in the heart.’” Skipping the details, which include a defense that Anderson’s seemingly drunken behavior was caused by “vestibular migraine.” Concluding: “My wife and I are both dead set that this is an absolute wrong, and we will fight this to the death,” Scott, who owns a golf course in Gilbert, Ariz., told The Times. ‘There is no way we’re letting this go.’ He said the lawsuit has cost him about $400,000. ‘My retirement is set back five years,’ he said. ‘I’m paying through the nose. Every day, I’m seeing another bill, and I’m about to keel over.’ He said he will appeal. His wife said she wants to keep fighting. ‘I’ll sell a kidney,’ Diana said. ‘I don’t care.’” • Nice people!
* * *
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 43 Fear (previous close: 39 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 62 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Sep 9 at 12:45:32 PM ET.
Rapture Index: Closes down one on Oil Supply/Price. “Oil demand is dpwn” [sic] [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 181. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Hard to believe the Rapture Index is going down. Where are there people getting their news?
Gallery
A “sunny nook” (except outside):
A Corner of the Garden in Rueil pic.twitter.com/VloOvDt64j
— Edouard Manet (@artistmanet) August 28, 2024
Zeitgeist Watch
“Churches Take Homeschooling in a Surprising Direction” [The American Conservative]. “t is hardly news that homeschooling has taken off around the country, especially since Covid. Over the last year alone, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, the number of US homeschooled students has gone from 3.6 million to 4 million—an 11 percent increase. Less well-known is the role America’s churches have played in not only facilitating the spread of homeschooling but in helping to make it a far more collaborative and even highly structured activity. By providing groups of homeschool families with a space that goes largely unused during the week and a small supervisory staff, many parishes have successfully combined online curricula with an environment more typical of a conventional public or private school… Exactly how many churches across the country offer such organized forms of homeschooling is hard to say, because only Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Tennessee, and Washington explicitly grant area churches or parochial schools the right to supervise homeschoolers.” • The least TAC could do is mention ventilation….
“Five Geek Social Fallacies” [Plausibly Deniable]. “Geek Social Fallacy #1: Ostracizers Are Evil. GSF1 is one of the most common fallacies, and one of the most deeply held. Many geeks have had horrible, humiliating, and formative experiences with ostracism, and the notion of being on the other side of the transaction is repugnant to them. In its non-pathological form, GSF1 is benign, and even commendable: it is long past time we all grew up and stopped with the junior high popularity games. However, in its pathological form, GSF1 prevents its carrier from participating in — or tolerating — the exclusion of anyone from anything, be it a party, a comic book store, or a web forum, and no matter how obnoxious, offensive, or aromatic the prospective excludee may be. As a result, nearly every geek social group of significant size has at least one member that 80% of the members hate, and the remaining 20% merely tolerate.” • Hmm.
News of the Wired
“Cough or sneeze? How the brain knows what to unleash” [Nature]. “Does a whiff of pollen trigger a sneeze or a cough? Scientists have discovered nerve cells that cause one response versus another: ‘sneeze neurons’ in the nasal passages relay sneeze signals to the brain, and separate neurons send cough messages, according to a study performed in mice.” But: “Does a whiff of pollen trigger a sneeze or a cough? Scientists have discovered nerve cells that cause one response versus another: ‘sneeze neurons’ in the nasal passages relay sneeze signals to the brain, and separate neurons send cough messages, according to a study1 performed in mice.”
Let us continue with our catbirds!
Bird Song of the Day
Gray Catbird, Indian Springs Wildlife Management Area; along Blair’s Valley Road, Washington, Maryland, United States. “Adult Gray Catbird singing from roadside vegetation.” Sounds like a duet:
Not to be confused with a catbus:
(By Studio Ghibli.)
* * *
Look for the Helpers
During a typhoon (DK):
During the super typhoon #Yagi in #Vietnam, many car drivers drove very slowly to shield motorbikes and people from the strong wind (because the strong wind trapped them on the road or on the bridge, they could be blown away if they tried to move). Wanted to hug everyone tightly. pic.twitter.com/rW8ZfYCank
— Phan Kim Thanh ⁷ ( ´･ω･) ~ Ꮚ ( •᷄ɞ•᷅ ) (@Alzheimer_13) September 8, 2024
I was pleasantly surprised to hear the other day how many people helped persons with baby carriages up stairs; my faith in humanity was somewhat restored. Has anybody ever seen similar behavior in the US? Of course, we don’t have typhoons, but tornadoes and hurricanes; it might not be possible to give the same sort of help.
* * *
My email address is down by the plant; please send examples of there (“Helpers” in the subject line). In our increasingly desperate and fragile neoliberal society, everyday normal incidents and stories of “the communism of everyday life” are what I am looking for (and not, say, the Red Cross in Hawaii, or even the UNWRA in Gaza). –>
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
* * *
2024
Less than one hundred days to go!
Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:
I would say the bloom is off the rose for Harris, except for an upward blip in Georgia. Looks like the enormous liberalgasm afte the Convention was confined to party loyalists. The Kamala campaign must be sore as boils Trump is within striking distance, let alone tied with them. What could account for it? Perhaps that’s why the pivot to RussiaGate. Remember, however, that all the fluctuations — in fact, all the leads, top to bottom — are within the margin of error.
“Toplines: September 2024 Times/Siena Poll of Registered Voters Nationwide” [New York Times]”
If this is a “Change vs. more of the same” election, and the voters want change — how could they not? — then Kamala is in real trouble.
“New Poll Suggests Harris’s Support Has Stalled After a Euphoric August” [New York Times]. Commentary on the Siena poll (above). “[T]he poll nonetheless finds that [Trump] has significant advantages in this election — and they might just be enough to put him over the top. He’s more popular than before. Overall, 46 percent of likely voters say they have a favorable view of the former president. That’s down a tick from our last national poll, when 47 percent had a favorable view, but it still makes him more popular than he was in 2016 or 2020. He has an advantage on the issues. We asked voters a two-part question. First, what’s the most important issue to your vote? Second, do you think Ms. Harris or Mr. Trump is better on that issue? By that measure, Mr. Trump has a five-point lead on the issue that matters most to voters, whatever that may be for them. He occupies the center. A near majority of voters say Mr. Trump is ‘not too far’ to the left or right on the issues, while only around one-third say he’s ‘too far to the right.’ Nearly half of voters, in contrast, say Ms. Harris is too far to the left; only 41 percent say she’s ‘not too far either way.’” • The 100-days election works against Harris, too. If she stumbles, badly, once, she could be a goner. From these numbers, the Trump campaign has laid a very solid foundation. (Maybe voters apply a “Trump Discount” to compensate for the puffery. If he says “Kamala’s a communist,” they discount that by, say, 90%, and still come out with the result that she’s left. Of course, it’s ludicrous to think Kamala’s anything like a communist — do you hear her calling for working class control of the means of production? — but nevertheless, the charge sticks, even given the discount.)
“Harris falling behind among male voters in key states” [The Hill]. “New polls show Vice President Harris faces a major challenge in winning over male voters and is losing men by a bigger margin than she’s winning women in key states such as Pennsylvania, Nevada and North Carolina…. Trump’s campaign has tried to exploit the gender divide by saturating battleground states with advertising focused on the economy, inflation, illegal immigration and crime, designed to appeal to younger male voters. ‘It’s battle of the sexes,’ said Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University, regarding the trend of male voters turning toward Trump and away from Harris. ‘The feeling is that for every advance women make, men necessarily lose.’ ‘In some instances, the statistics bear out this apprehension among men,’ he added, pointing to the declines in the number of men attending college as well as some of their earning power.’” • Important that this is swing state data. I wonder what’s happening with the marginal women who are swinging toward Trump and not Harris.
* * *
* * *
Kennedy (I): This is absolutely terrific:
#MAHA Shake@DaRealAmberRose pic.twitter.com/p5ivjPA98k
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) September 8, 2024
As readers know, I love stupid humor. And this is really stupid!
Our Famously Free Press
“Trump’s real Project 2025 was written for him in Moscow by Vladimir Putin’s men” [Will Bunch, Philadelphia Inquirer]. • I read the whole thing. Yes, Project 2025 was written by Heritage Foundation goons and not in Moscow by Putin’s agents (let’s not be sexist, mkay?). Bunch is recycling RussiaRussiaRussia, Now With Influencers!™. It’s as if Bunch thinks conservatives can’t come up with bad ideas all on their own. Or oppo. Unlike AIPAC influencers, of course, who have nothing but good ideas and never do oppo (and if you want to see an example of an effective, professional foreign influence operation, one that actually drives US policy and defeats US politicians, see Mearsheimer and Walt’s “The Israel Lobby,” which makes everything liberal Democrat demon figure Putin has done look like the pissant, minor league diddleysh*t that it is). Sheesh.
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 (dashboard); 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, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
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Look for the Helpers
Mask blocs are great, and kudos to those who set them up:
We are working together to source Aura masks! This is an exciting collaboration where half the fun has been in getting to know each other 😄 We haven’t won the auction that we’re aiming for yet, but we will likely need at least $4000! pic.twitter.com/0XGV1d1hkE
— Charlotte Mask Bloc (@CLT_Mask_Bloc) September 7, 2024
Maybe set one up in Nassau County? Just a thought…
Airborne Transmission
“Upper-room ultraviolet light and negative air ionization to prevent tuberculosis transmission” [PLOS Medicine]. From 2009, still germane. From the Abstract: “We evaluated the efficacy of upper-room ultraviolet (UV) lights and negative air ionization for preventing airborne TB transmission using a guinea pig air-sampling model to measure the TB infectiousness of ward air.” But: “Upper-room UV lights and negative air ionization each prevented most airborne TB transmission detectable by guinea pig air sampling. Provided there is adequate mixing of room air, upper-room UV light is an effective, low-cost intervention for use in TB infection control in high-risk clinical settings.” • Underlining that UV alone is not sufficient.
Transmission: Covid
Because of course:
Oh no, it happened. Someone posted about their whole camp having the “Burning man flu”.
— Miles W. Griffis (@mileswgriffis) September 8, 2024
Airborne Transmission: Mpox
“Contact Tracing for Mpox Clade II Cases Associated with Air Travel — United States, July 2021–August 2022” [Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC]. This sounds re-assuring, but here is the key paragraph:
CDC adapted the mpox community exposure risk assessment§ to define an exposure risk zone for aircraft contact investigations. In general, air passengers seated within a 3-foot radius (one seat in any direction) of the potentially infectious person on flights of ≤3 hours’ duration or within a 6-foot radius (two seats in any direction) on flights of >3 hours’ duration were considered to be in the exposure risk zone.
But that’s not how airflow in airplanes works (CDC is still in the grip of droplet dogma, where coughing is seen as the key mode of distance, and hence a radius is established for how long the droplets will be “in the air”). Sadly, I do not have the study that shows this to hand — it’s in that thread somewhere — but bug me about it if you want it.
Vaccines: Covid
“The gut microbiota modifies antibody durability and booster responses after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination” [Journal of Translational Medicine]. From the Abstract: “The findings of this study underscored the potential interaction between the gut microbiome and the longevity/boosting effect of antibodies following vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. The identification of specific microbial associations suggests the prospect of microbiome-based strategies for enhancing vaccine efficacy.” • Interesting!
Elite Maleficence
CDC messing about with maps, again:
A map I never link to, for obvious reasons (nobody travels or lives in a State, with respect to Covid; they travel to or live in a city or town, a place with a wastewater plant).
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Lambert here: The figures look mildly encouraging for now, but I would expect an immediate worsening after Labor Day travel kicks in, along with grade schools, high schools, and colleges starting up. Stay safe out there!
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
Wastewater
★ This week[1] CDC August 27
Last Week[2] CDC (until next week):
Variants [3] CDC August 31
Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC August 31
Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data September 6:
National [6] CDC August 17:
Positivity
National[7] Walgreens September 3:
Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic August 24:
Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC August 19:
Variants[10] CDC August 19:
Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC August 31:
Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC August 31:
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) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Keeps spreading. NOTE The date seems to be wrong, but the number of sites has changed so this is new.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular. XDV.1 flat.
[4] (ED) Down, but worth noting that Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Flat, that is, no longer down.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.
[7] (Walgreens) Big drop, but all those white states showing no change: Labor Day weekend reporting issues?
[8] (Cleveland) Dropping.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn’t even run back to 1/21/23, as it used to, but now starts 1/1/24. There’s also no way to adjust the time range. CDC really doesn’t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that’s why the shape of the curve has changed.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) What the heck is LB.1?
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up. If the United States is like Canada, deaths are several undercounted:
Tara Motarity has confirmed our fears.Most provinces are only reporting about 20% of covid deaths.Maybe even less.Which suggests the deaths are close to 5 times to 6+ times the reported figures.Nova Scotia has reported 270 so far this year. It’s actually 1,325-1,700 so far. pic.twitter.com/6xF6SREyKB
— Dr.Robert Strang (@DSlayer520) September 2, 2024
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
There are no official statistics of interest today.
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Supply Chain: “The largest dockworkers’ union in the U.S. is signaling that it’s more focused right now on preparing for a strike than on getting to the bargaining table” [Logistics Report, Wall Street Journal]. “The International Longshoremen’s Association concluded meetings last week aimed at finalizing plans for the union’s first walkout targeting East Coast and Gulf Coast ports in 50 years. …[T]he expiration of the current contract is now just three weeks away and no negotiations on a new agreement are on the calendar. Union President Harold Daggett says the ILA won’t sit down with employers unless they agree to a 77% pay increase over six years, a big jump over the 32% wage gains that the union for West Coast dockworkers won last year.”
Manufacturing: “Machinists union agrees on tentative contract deal with Boeing” [Seattle Times (PI)]. “But many workers said the deal falls short of their demands, leaving the possibility of work stoppage on the table. The 11th-hour agreement — reached at about 2:30 a.m. Sunday, with the news publicly released a couple of hours later — will avoid a strike if a majority of the union’s members ratify the deal, as recommended by International Association of Machinists District 751 President Jon Holden, who led the negotiations. The contract offers workers a 25% general wage increase, enhanced retirement benefits, fewer hours of mandatory overtime work and increased parental leave. And, in what could prove a historic element of the contract for this region, Boeing offered a first-of-its-kind commitment that if it launches an all-new plane in the next four years, that jet will be built in the Puget Sound area by the local workforce.” • Why not a seat on the board? Or two seats? And 25% looks a little ambitious beside the ILU’s 77%,
Tech: “MI6 and CIA using generative AI to combat tech-driven threat actors” [The Register]. “‘We are now using AI, including generative AI, to enable and improve intelligence activities – from summarization to ideation to helping identify key information in a sea of data,’ the pair wrote in the Financial Times. ‘We are training AI to help protect and ‘red team’ our own operations to ensure we can still stay secret when we need to. We are using cloud technologies so our brilliant data scientists can make the most of our data, and we are partnering with the most innovative companies in the US, UK and around the world,’ they added.” • Let me know how that works out…
Tech: Business model:
What a beautiful business… zero venture capital, most successful creator platform by a mile … pic.twitter.com/eDyEkT4mZJ
— sam lessin 🏴☠️ (@lessin) September 8, 2024
Entertainment: “The Palace Coup at the Magic Kingdom” [New York Times]. Or, as some like to call it, Mauschwitz: “For a company that bills its theme parks as the ‘Happiest Place on Earth,’ Disney’s corporate headquarters have long been anything but — a hotbed of intrigue and power struggles. Chapek’s former chief of staff told people the company’s sixth-floor executive suite was a ‘snake pit.’ Iger ascended almost two decades ago, after a power struggle between Michael Eisner, a long-serving CEO, and Roy E. Disney, Walt Disney’s nephew and a Disney board member. By that time, Eisner had already elevated and then dispatched two handpicked successors, Jeffrey Katzenberg, who became co-founder of DreamWorks, and Michael Ovitz, once the most powerful agent in Hollywood. Iger, who started his career as a weather forecaster on a cable channel in upstate New York, had vowed to never follow in Eisner’s footsteps.” • Nice people!
Entertainment: “Disney-obsessed couple lose lawsuit to get back into exclusive Club 33” [Los Angeles Times]. “As members of Disney’s exclusive Club 33, Scott and Diana Anderson visited the two Anaheim theme parks 60 to 80 times a year. The private club, with its wood-paneled trophy room and other amenities, was the center of their social life. They brought friends, acquaintances and business associates. As a couple, they went on the Haunted Mansion ride nearly 1,000 times. The club’s yearly dues were $31,500, and with travel and hotel expenses, the Arizona couple were spending close to $125,000 annually to get their Disney fix. All of it came to an end in 2017, when Disney revoked their membership in the club after an allegation that Scott Anderson was drunk in public. Diana Anderson, a hard-core Disney aficionado since childhood, called it ‘a stab in the heart.’” Skipping the details, which include a defense that Anderson’s seemingly drunken behavior was caused by “vestibular migraine.” Concluding: “My wife and I are both dead set that this is an absolute wrong, and we will fight this to the death,” Scott, who owns a golf course in Gilbert, Ariz., told The Times. ‘There is no way we’re letting this go.’ He said the lawsuit has cost him about $400,000. ‘My retirement is set back five years,’ he said. ‘I’m paying through the nose. Every day, I’m seeing another bill, and I’m about to keel over.’ He said he will appeal. His wife said she wants to keep fighting. ‘I’ll sell a kidney,’ Diana said. ‘I don’t care.’” • Nice people!
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Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 43 Fear (previous close: 39 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 62 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Sep 9 at 12:45:32 PM ET.
Rapture Index: Closes down one on Oil Supply/Price. “Oil demand is dpwn” [sic] [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 181. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Hard to believe the Rapture Index is going down. Where are there people getting their news?
Gallery
A “sunny nook” (except outside):
A Corner of the Garden in Rueil pic.twitter.com/VloOvDt64j
— Edouard Manet (@artistmanet) August 28, 2024
Zeitgeist Watch
“Churches Take Homeschooling in a Surprising Direction” [The American Conservative]. “t is hardly news that homeschooling has taken off around the country, especially since Covid. Over the last year alone, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, the number of US homeschooled students has gone from 3.6 million to 4 million—an 11 percent increase. Less well-known is the role America’s churches have played in not only facilitating the spread of homeschooling but in helping to make it a far more collaborative and even highly structured activity. By providing groups of homeschool families with a space that goes largely unused during the week and a small supervisory staff, many parishes have successfully combined online curricula with an environment more typical of a conventional public or private school… Exactly how many churches across the country offer such organized forms of homeschooling is hard to say, because only Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Tennessee, and Washington explicitly grant area churches or parochial schools the right to supervise homeschoolers.” • The least TAC could do is mention ventilation….
“Five Geek Social Fallacies” [Plausibly Deniable]. “Geek Social Fallacy #1: Ostracizers Are Evil. GSF1 is one of the most common fallacies, and one of the most deeply held. Many geeks have had horrible, humiliating, and formative experiences with ostracism, and the notion of being on the other side of the transaction is repugnant to them. In its non-pathological form, GSF1 is benign, and even commendable: it is long past time we all grew up and stopped with the junior high popularity games. However, in its pathological form, GSF1 prevents its carrier from participating in — or tolerating — the exclusion of anyone from anything, be it a party, a comic book store, or a web forum, and no matter how obnoxious, offensive, or aromatic the prospective excludee may be. As a result, nearly every geek social group of significant size has at least one member that 80% of the members hate, and the remaining 20% merely tolerate.” • Hmm.
News of the Wired
“Cough or sneeze? How the brain knows what to unleash” [Nature]. “Does a whiff of pollen trigger a sneeze or a cough? Scientists have discovered nerve cells that cause one response versus another: ‘sneeze neurons’ in the nasal passages relay sneeze signals to the brain, and separate neurons send cough messages, according to a study performed in mice.” But: “Does a whiff of pollen trigger a sneeze or a cough? Scientists have discovered nerve cells that cause one response versus another: ‘sneeze neurons’ in the nasal passages relay sneeze signals to the brain, and separate neurons send cough messages, according to a study1 performed in mice.”
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Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From TH:
TH writes: “And what self-respecting Botanical Garden (in this case, San Diego’s) doesn’t have a lovely tranquil ‘stop and meditate awhile’ pond? This one stands complete with lovely yellow blossoms sprinkled across its surface, a plethora of lush green plants along its borders, muddy green frogs that so blend with the water-color that all one sees of them is their big yellow eyes, and a small convention of hovering dragon and damselflies.” This looks lovely and peaceful, and I wish I were sitting beside that pond right now.
