By Lambert Strether of Corrente<\/p>\n
Patient readers, it\u2019s been a very long week in the real world and I\u2019m tired. So, this Water Cooler isn\u2019t exactly an Open Thread, but it is short. And now I\u2019m going to find a cool breeze and shut my eyes. Talk amongst yourselves! \u2013lambert<\/p>\n
\u2013lambert<\/p>\n
Bird Song of the Day<\/p>\n
I looked for another species of songbird that mimics, and came up with the Thrasher. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Brown Thrasher, Otsego, Michigan, United States. Plus insect sounds!<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
In Case You Might Miss\u2026 <\/p>\n
New RCP polling averages: No good news for Trump.
\nReticulum networking stack<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Politics<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.\u201d \u2013Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles<\/p>\n
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2024<\/p>\n
Less than one hundred days to go!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s RCP Poll Averages:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/rcp_2024-08-16.png\")
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There is no good news here for Trump. The deterioration in both Pennsylvania and Georgia is especially marked. Remember, however, that all the fluctuations \u2014 in fact, all the leads \u2014 are within the margin of error. So the \u201cjoy\u201d is based on, well, vibes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow Harris Has Completely Upended the Presidential Race, in 14 Maps\u201d [New York Times]. \u201cWe are now back to the same electoral map that we had before Mr. Biden\u2019s summertime polling collapse: Once again, the winner in November will come down to the seven battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.\u201d \u2022 270toWin agrees with the magnitude of the shift, although they leave out North Carolina:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/270toWin.png\")
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\u201cHarris has opened up a second path to victory, according to The Post\u2019s polling model\u201d [WaPo]. \u201cOur modeling shows that Harris has two paths to possible success: the Rust Belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and the Sun Belt states of Georgia, Arizona and Nevada as well as North Carolina (she could win in either region and still claim the White House). Meanwhile, Trump must win both the Rust Belt and Sun Belt to triumph.\u201d \u2022 Hmm.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
The Campaign Trail:<\/p>\n
Kamala:<\/p>\n
Kamala (D): Kamala\u2019s lying again:<\/p>\n
Trump: I never got credit for COVID<\/p>\n
(Over a million Americans died and he told us to inject bleach) pic.twitter.com\/vww2MtJurW<\/p>\n
\u2014 Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 14, 2024<\/p>\n
First, Trump is not lying. The vaccines that Biden mandated were all developed by Trump\u2019s Operation Warp Speed. Second, of the million that died, most died on Biden\u2019s watch. Third, \u201cinject bleach\u201d is a lie (on a par with the lie about Vance and his couch). Again, Democrats seem to prefer to lie. Even when they don\u2019t have to. It\u2019s weird.<\/p>\n
Trump:<\/p>\n
Trump (R): \u201cTrump Gambles on Outside Groups to Finance Voter Outreach Efforts\u201d [New York Times]. \u201cThe Republican campaign for president is quietly being remade by new federal guidelines that empower big-money groups and threaten to undermine party control well beyond the 2024 election. Former President Donald J. Trump\u2019s team has enlisted some of these groups to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to knock on hundreds of thousands of doors across the country \u2014 saving the campaign significant money in the process. But the Trump campaign is making a serious gamble in doing so, betting that these outside groups, which they do not directly control, can carry out their marching orders without accountability\u2026. Senior Republican Party officials fear that the decision \u2014 and the Trump campaign\u2019s efforts \u2014 will lead to the party losing considerable control over get-out-the-vote operations, much as they have in the world of television advertising, where the scripts and strategies are often crafted by super PACs with their own ambitions and ideas.\u201d \u2022 Another imponderable\u2026..<\/p>\n
Syndemics<\/p>\n
\u201cI am in earnest \u2014 I will not equivocate \u2014 I will not excuse \u2014 I will not retreat a single inch \u2014 AND I WILL BE HEARD.\u201d \u2013William Lloyd Garrison<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); \u201cIowa COVID-19 Tracker\u201d (in IA, but national data). \u201cInfection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts\u201d (especially on hospitalization by city).<\/p>\n
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 \u201cCOVID\u201d in the subject line. Thank you!<\/p>\n
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\u2019Alene; 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).<\/p>\n
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).<\/p>\n
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux us\u00e9es); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).<\/p>\n
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). <\/p>\n
Stay safe out there!<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Origins Debate<\/p>\n
\u201cPentagon still funneling money to suspended EcoHealth Alliance, unable to access potential gain-of-function research data abroad\u201d [New York Post]. \u201cThe Pentagon is still funneling money to the suspended grantee EcoHealth Alliance and is unable to fully access data on gain-of-function research it may be funding overseas \u2014 including in China, according to a letter exclusively obtained by The Post.\u201d \u2022 Leaving aside gain-of-function, EcoHealth is an obvious NGO cesspit of dodgy accounting and sleazy contracting, as Vanity Fair showed in exhaustive detail back in 2022. It\u2019s hard to see why they would have any ongoing contracts.<\/p>\n
Policy<\/p>\n
\u201cThe World Is Not Ready for the Next Pandemic\u201d [Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker, Foreign Affairs]. The deck: \u201cGovernments Need to Invest Far More in New and Better Vaccines.\u201d From the text:<\/p>\n
Officials should make no mistake: there will be more influenza and coronavirus pandemics, and any one of them could prove far more catastrophic than the COVID-19 pandemic. Whenever it occurs, it will almost certainly be a virus, primarily transmitted from person to person via the airborne route, a \u201cvirus with wings,\u201d meaning the viral particles can be suspended in the air for long periods and distances. When such an outbreak transpires, rapid global transmission will happen before anyone realizes the world is in the earliest days of a years-long pandemic. Governments cannot wait to prepare until a virus is already spreading around the world. As the last five years have shown, even a moderately deadly disease can have enormous health, economic, social, and political consequences.<\/p>\n
And yet, no mention of non-pharmaceutical interventions at all \u2014 even though blocking the airborne route through ventilation and masking is the only way to, as it were, \u201cclip the wings\u201d of the virus before it spreads, whether the virus be Covid, H5N1, MonkeyPox, or even SmallPox. (Incidentally, re: \u201cWhen such an outbreak transpires\u201d, the word transpires derives from the Latin spirare, to breathe. It\u2019s like the return of the repressed #CovidIsAirborne.)<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts<\/p>\n
Lambert here: Worth noting that national Emergency Room admissions are as high as they were in the first wave, in 2020.<\/p>\n
LEGEND<\/p>\n
1) \u2605 for charts new today; all others are not updated.<\/p>\n
2) For a full-size\/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and \u201copen image in new tab.\u201d<\/p>\n
NOTES<\/p>\n
[1] (CDC) This week\u2019s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Keeps spreading.<\/p>\n
[2] (CDC) Last week\u2019s wastewater map.<\/p>\n
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular.<\/p>\n
[4] (ER) Worth noting Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.<\/p>\n
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Going down. Doesn\u2019t need to be a permanent thing, of course. (The New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and then around the country through air travel.)<\/p>\n
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.<\/p>\n
[7] (Walgreens) Fiddling and diddling.<\/p>\n
[8] (Cleveland) Jumping.<\/p>\n
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Up. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn\u2019t even run back to 1\/21\/23, as it used to, but now starts 1\/1\/24. There\u2019s also no way to adjust the time range. CDC really doesn\u2019t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that\u2019s why the shape of the curve has changed.<\/p>\n
[10] (Travelers: Variants) It\u2019s rumored that there\u2019s a new variant in China, XDV.1, but it\u2019s not showing up here.<\/p>\n
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.<\/p>\n
[12] Deaths low, ED up.<\/p>\n
Stats Watch<\/p>\n
Housing: \u201cUnited States Housing Starts\u201d [Trading Economics]. \u201cHousing starts in the United States fell by 6.8% from the previous month to an annualized rate of 1.238 million in July of 2024, the sharpest decline since March to the lowest level since 2020, and contrasting with the downwardly revised 1.1% increase in the previous month.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Tech: \u201cFortnite Maker Epic Games Challenges Apple\u2019s Dominance With New iOS App Store\u201d [Wired]. \u201cEpic Games today officially launched a rival app store for iOS in the European Union, marking the first time Apple\u2019s own App Store has had to face a serious rival. The Epic Games Store will initially offer Epic\u2019s games, including Fortnite, for users to download onto their iPhones, with plans to start onboarding third-party developers\u2019 games beginning in December\u2026. Epic says its app store will take a maximum 12 percent commission on sales, undercutting Apple\u2019s App Store, where fees can reach up to 30 percent\u2026 Epic is making use of a new EU regulation known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which forces tech giants to make changes to give rivals more access to their closely guarded communities of users. In Apple\u2019s case, that means the company has to allow alternative app stores onto European devices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tech: \u201cElon Musk\u2019s financial woes at X have Tesla bulls fearing he will liquidate more stock\u201d [Fortune]. \u201cMusk\u2019s repeated outbursts against advertisers have dried up the main source of revenue for the loss-making company formerly known as Twitter. A recent decision to sue them for heeding his own advice to not buy ads on the platform hasn\u2019t helped. At some point, he will have to provide a fresh infusion of cash to salvage his $44 billion takeover. And that might mean Musk sells Tesla stock to raise the money\u2014hurting anyone who holds the carmaker\u2019s shares. \u2018I would be expecting something between $1 and $2 billion in stock,\u2019 said Bradford Ferguson, president and chief investment officer of asset manager Halter Ferguson Financial, in comments posted to YouTube on Wednesday. This alone could cause the stock to lose between 5% and 10% of its value. \u2018It\u2019s a massive hole they need to plug.’\u201d<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Fear & Greed Index: 36 Fear (previous close: 32 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 23 (Extreme Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Aug 16 at 1:13:54 PM ET.<\/p>\n
Poetry Nook<\/p>\n
\u201cPOETS Day! Useful Lines and a Favorite from Pound [Ordinary Times]. \u201cI use a line \u2013 overuse, my children might say \u2013 from Yeats whenever the opportunity pops up; \u2018O saddest harp in all the world.\u2019 \u2026 It\u2019s a good line to deploy when a child gives you \u2018But, I did my best!\u2019 when even without bending down you can see piles of Legos pushed under the bed in a supposedly picked up room.\u201d \u2022 POETS = Piss Off Early, Tomorrow\u2019s Saturday. Which I seem to have done!<\/p>\n
News of the Wired<\/p>\n
Private, Secure and Uncensorable Messaging Over a LoRa Mesh\u201d [unsigned.io]. The deck: \u201cOr: How to set up a completely private, independent and encrypted communication system in half an hour, using stuff you can buy for under $100.\u201d \u2022\u00a0It looks like I might have install firmware on hardware I buy to get this Reticulum stack to work. Still, periodically, I\u2019ve muttered about how I would like to send data over (say) radio, and not over the Internet, away from the Censorship Industrial Complex. Perhaps some networking maven can comment.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
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 CC:<\/p>\n
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CC writers: \u201cButterfly for Water Cooler. Been a few of them pictured lately so I thought I would contribute one to the cause, taken lately.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. Material here is Lambert\u2019s, and does not express the views of the Naked Capitalism site. If you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn\u2019t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I\u2019m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for three or four days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:<\/p>\n
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