By Lambert Strether of Corrente<\/p>\n
Bird Song of the Day<\/p>\n
Catbirds are in the Mimidae specie, like mockingbird and thrashers. Readers have said they like the mimicry, so hopefully MacCaulay Library has enough recordings to keep us all satisfied, at least for a time.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Black Catbird, San Miguel; Isla Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
In Case You Might Miss\u2026 <\/p>\n
Democrat triumphalism out of control.
\nSuit filed against Nassau County\u2019s mask ban.
\n Gustave Courbet, Berthe Morisot<\/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
* * *<\/p>\n
Trump Assassination Attempt<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks remains an infuriating enigma weeks after shooting\u201d [New York Post]. \u201cWhen federal authorities raided his family\u2019s modest home in the wake of the shooting, agents seized hardware including his laptop, two cellphones and multiple hard drives and flash drives. The large amount of data recovered (around 4.5 terabytes) is a potential technological treasure trove for forensics teams, but authorities said getting definitive answers has been slow going due to the sheer volume of information to sift through. However, it\u2019s clear from congressional hearings \u2014 and the details that have emerged from FBI briefings with lawmakers \u2014 that investigators still have no satisfying answers for why Crooks targeted Trump\u2026. Crooks\u2019 internet presence, or lack thereof, is another layer of the mystery in a world where more than four-fifths of young adults use at least one social media platform. Despite the collective scrutiny of every law enforcement agency and investigative journalist in the country, no profiles definitively linked to Crooks have been unearthed. Investigators have homed in on several accounts believed to be linked to Crooks on foreign-based encrypted messaging services and social media platforms, but the FBI has yet to detail its findings so far.\u201d \u2022 That\u2019s really weird, because Crooks was technical. <\/p>\n
LIHOP?<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8 NEW \u2013 Whistleblower says Secret Service HQ told agents working the Butler PA event NOT to request additional manpower resources for the rally & warned any such requests would be denied. Contradicts Director Rowe testimony, who said no resources were ever denied pic.twitter.com\/85sHTAI82u<\/p>\n
\u2014 Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) August 23, 2024<\/p>\n
Biden Administration<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Twitter Files raise question of how independent pre-Musk company was from Biden administration\u201d [Just the News]. \u201cWhere did the Biden administration end and Twitter begin? The latest batch of the Twitter Files, reported by former Senate Finance Committee investigator Paul Thacker from records turned over by the Elon Musk-owned company now called X, shows a curious timeline in the first couple months of Democratic President Joe Biden\u2019s term. Within two weeks of the inauguration, the company covertly hired a \u2018global strategic advisory and commercial diplomacy services\u2019 firm cofounded and chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to seek State\u2019s help dealing with censorship pressure from India. On the two-month anniversary of the Biden administration, Politico reported on a new \u2018blob\u2019 that had formed from alumni from the firm, Albright Stonebridge. At least 10 had taken top foreign-policy jobs including United Nations ambassador, deputy secretary of state, two undersecretaries of state, and deputy national assistant security adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris. Another became chief of staff to the now-Democratic nominee for president\u2019s husband, first gentleman Doug Emhoff. The new tranche of internal emails \u2018calls into sharp question claims by Democrats,\u2019 including House Weaponization of the Federal Government Subcommittee ranking member Delegate Stacey Plaskett, \u2018and their allies in the media that Twitter did not collude with federal agencies and was free from Biden administration pressure to make its own censorship decisions,\u2019 Thacker wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n
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_2024-08-23.png\")
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Good news for Trump in that last week\u2019s deterioration seems to have been slowed, although we shall have to see if Kamala gets a convention \u201cbounce.\u201d Remember, however, that all the fluctuations \u2014 in fact, all the leads \u2014 are within the margin of error. If you read most of the press, you\u2019d think Kamala has this race in the bag. It\u2019s not so. Do note, however, Trump\u2019s deterioration in North Carolina: +2.4 last week to +0.9 this week, when OG pollster Sabato moved it to \u201ctoss-up\u201d status from \u201clean Republican.\u201d No wonder Trump held a rally there this week. NOTE With Kennedy, it would seem, about to drop out, I started tracking the national percentage as \u201cTop Battlegrounds,\u201d where Trump\u2019s shrinking lead is +0.1 this week (as opposed to \u201c5-Way RCP Average, where Harris led by +1.1 last week).<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Kamala (D): \u201cKamala Harris Isn\u2019t Winning This Race Yet\u201d [Freddie DeBoer]. Worth reading in full. This caught my eye: \u201cAbove is the latest polling breakdown from the New York Times. As you might notice, it does not currently project a Kamala Harris victory! She\u2019s leading at the national level, but as everyone suddenly forgot in 2016, the United States does not have a national popular vote system. She\u2019s leading in two of the three \u201cblue wall\u201d states, but the outcomes are within the margin of error, and most paths to victory require her to carry all three. She\u2019s tied in Pennsylvania and Arizona. The only state here where a lead exceeds the margin of victory is Georgia, which favors Donald Trump. If Harris\u2019s recent gains regress back to this state of affairs in the coming months, it\u2019s a coinflip election where Trump could easily squeak out victory in Pennsylvania and Arizona and regain the White House. That\u2019s not some wild hypothetical! It\u2019s an entirely plausible state of affairs! Much more plausible than Trump winning in 2016, where it took Hillary\u2019s wild unpopularity, Robby Mook\u2019s incompetence, and decades-long indifference among Democrats towards the collapse of the Rust Belt. This election is very, very close. And yet this current state of affairs has produced some of the most wildly unrestrained football-spiking and expressions of certainty that I\u2019ve seen in 24 years of following presidential elections.\u201d \u2022 I agree. Most ginormous liberalgasm ever. I\u2019m not sure that DeBoer\u2019s \u201cblue wall\u201d \u2014 hate the term, states and regions are not \u201cwalls\u201d \u2014 match Fridays\u2019 RCP averages, but directionally DeBoer is surely correct, as readers know who\u2019ve been watching them. (It will be interesting to see this Friday and next whether Kamala gets a convention \u201cbounce\u201d, or whether some combination of RFK\u2019s announcement and the mysterious inner processes of voters responding the the Democrat National Convention eats the expected bounce up.)<\/p>\n
Kamala (D): \u201cWill the DNC shake up the polls in Harris\u2019s favor?\u201d [The Hill]. \u201cBetween July and August, there was an 11-point increase in voters under 40 years old saying they support the Democratic nominee, and a 4-point increase in the share of both Hispanic and Black voters saying the same. In that same vein, more than 6 in 10 (62 percent) Democrats said they were \u2018strong\u2019 Harris supporters, almost double the number who had said the same of Biden in previous polling conducted by ABC\/Ipsos. That being said, despite the successful convention and a likely post-convention polling boost, it is an open question whether Harris did enough to overcome the vulnerabilities that were evident in pre-convention polling.\u201d But: \u201cSimilarly, the aforementioned ABC poll suggests that while rallying traditionally Democratic voters, Harris has not yet improved on Biden\u2019s 2020 margins with two key voting blocs. The vice president\u2019s 5-point lead with suburban voters (50 percent to 45 percent) is roughly half of Biden\u2019s 11-point advantage in 2020, and her 34 percent support among white non-college voters is virtually identical to Biden\u2019s 33 percent four years ago, according to Pew Research. How opinions of the vice president change among these two groups of voters will be critical to watch, particularly after a successful DNC. If Harris can move the needle in her direction with these key groups, the vice president\u2019s honeymoon period may, in fact, last through the 2024 election. \u201d<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Plague\u201d does seem appropriate:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/rfk_plague.png\")
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* * *<\/p>\n
Trump (R): \u201cLest we Forget the Horrors: a Catalog of Trump\u2019s Worst Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes\u201d [McSweeney\u2019s]. \u201cEarly in President Trump\u2019s term, McSweeney\u2019s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump\u2019s cruelties, collusions, and crimes, and it felt urgent then to track them, to ensure these horrors\u2014happening almost daily\u2014would not be forgotten. This election year, with the very real possibility of Trump returning to office, we know it\u2019s important to be reminded of these horrors and to head to the polls in November to avoid experiencing new cruelties, collusions, corruption, and crimes.\u201d \u2022 \u201cOne of Terry Pratchett\u2019s more entertaining villains, Mr. Pin, has \u2018Not a Nice Person at All\u2019 done in pokerwork on his wallet. \u2018I wonder kind of person would put that on a wallet?\u2019 \u2018Somebody who wasn\u2019t a very nice person.’\u201d<\/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
Maskstravaganza<\/p>\n
Mask bans (1):<\/p>\n
At a faculty senate meeting. A Columbia professor called Palestinian students reading the names of those murdered in Gaza “KKK members” for wearing masks.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Layla \ud83e\udeac (@itslaylas) August 23, 2024<\/p>\n
Mask bans (2): \u201cLawsuit challenging Nassau\u2019s mask ban filed in federal court\u201d [Newsday]. \u201cTwo Nassau residents have filed a federal class-action lawsuit alleging the county\u2019s mask ban discriminates against people with disabilities by depriving them of equal access to public life, court records show. The complaint, filed in Eastern District Court in Central Islip on Thursday by the Albany area advocacy group Disability Rights New York, names Nassau County and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman as defendants. It alleges the mask ban violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, and seeks for the court to declare the ban unconstitutional and order Nassau County to end it. \u2018This mask ban poses a direct threat to public health and discriminates against people with disabilities,\u2019 DRNY executive director Timothy A. Clune said in a statement. The organization, which is also seeking an injunction and temporary restraining order staying the ban, also says it will limit services available for people who wear masks in public due to a disability.\u201d \u2022 Good.<\/p>\n
Elite Maleficence<\/p>\n
HICPAC* back in November, having accomplished nothing (For more on HICPAC at NC, see here, here, here, here, and here). <\/p>\n
So a long working day for HICPAC- started late after 9:10 ended at 2:43, 1.5 hour lunch and a 1 hour \u201cbreak\u201d so just couldn\u2019t get to updating guidance now that @WHO said back in November that COVID is AIRBORNE. They said they will discuss at their next meeting in NOVEMBER despite\u2026<\/p>\n
\u2014 \ud83d\udc9cMartha Young- JD, MBA, N95-clean the air: (@mryoung151) August 22, 2024<\/p>\n
Yes, but could the Committee members collect a per diem?<\/p>\n
@Algorithmus22\u2018s transcript of Yaneer Bar-Yam\u2019s testimony at the HICPAC meetings just passed. The screenshots overlap a bit:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/yaneer_1.png\")
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/yaneer_2.png\")
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/yaneer_3.png\")
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No quorum?!?!<\/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. XDV.1 flat.<\/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
Lambert here: Since things are bad out on the West Coast, I went looking for California hospitalization data to compare with New York\u2019s, and found this: \u201cDue to changes in reporting requirements for hospitals, CDPH is no longer including hospitalization data on the CDPH dashboard. CDPH remains committed to monitoring the severe outcomes of COVID-19 and influenza, including the impact on hospitals. CDC\u2019s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) will remain open to accept data, and CDC and CDPH strongly encourage all facilities to continue reporting.\u201d Thanks, Mandy!<\/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) The new variant in China, XDV.1, is 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
Manufacturing: \u201cUnited States Durable Goods Orders\u201d [Trading Economics]. \u201cNew orders for manufactured durable goods in the US surged by 9.9% from the previous month in July of 2024, making up for the downwardly revised 6.9% decline in the earlier period, the most since May 2020 and firmly above market expectations of a 5% expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manufacturing: \u201cUnited States Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index\u201d [Trading Economics]. \u201cThe Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas\u2019 general business activity index for manufacturing in Texas rose to -9.7 in August of 2024 from -17.5 in the previous month, marking the lowest contraction level since January 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Retail: \u201cComplicated Starbucks Orders Is A Language I Don\u2019t Speak None To Good\u201d [Ordinary Times]. \u201cStarbucks will be yet another case study in a brand shooting to the heights of success, but not knowing how to sustain itself when the mandate from the shareholders is more, more, more and the fundamental rule of investment is \u2018trees don\u2019t grow to the sky\u2019 or the blunter \u2018pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered.\u2019 Starbucks the brand is transitioning from the hot, expanding, cool brand to a legacy brand that\u2019s been around for generational business. Kids who grew up with their parents going are now the parents of their own kids, and so forth. If there was a defined line between being a well-known brand with almost universal recognition and folks getting tired of the brand, then far fewer businesses would fall off Mount Success\u2026 But the biggest problem Starbucks has might be generational. The shopping center I described is right across from the high school. Which is smart business, but over the past year has revealed something else Starbucks has to fight. You rarely ever see teenagers there. They don\u2019t like to go into Starbucks. Too many old people on Facebook hanging around.\u201d \u2022 I don\u2019t play the ponies, so I don\u2019t know the phrase \u201cpigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered.\u201d Can some kind reader elucidate?<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Fear & Greed Index: 55 Neutral (previous close: 52 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 46 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Aug 26 at 1:32:02 PM ET.<\/p>\n
Rapture Index: Closes unchanged [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 182. Current: 183. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) \u2022 Hard to believe the Rapture Index is going down. Where are there people getting their news?<\/p>\n
Gallery<\/p>\n
On the beach:<\/p>\n
Gustave Courbet pic.twitter.com\/k1S4AbIVZI<\/p>\n
\u2014 Impressions (@impression_ists) August 22, 2024<\/p>\n
\u201cBerthe Morisot, Early Impressionist Criticism and the Aesthetics of the Plein-air Interior\u201d [Nonesite]. From May, still germane. \u201cMorisot dressed her models in her own clothes and accessories and placed them in her own home.98 While this was no doubt a pragmatic decision to create a sense of realism, it also allowed Morisot to be present in her artworks in a way that was less available to her male counterparts, and the intimate effect of these private scenes is therefore enhanced. It may be argued that in works such as Woman at her Toilette, the male gaze is thwarted via the careful orchestration of the personal objects of the artist and the use of paint. Instead, Morisot\u2019s very personal self-expression, in its restraint and power, translated through the effects of light, color and skin, comes to the fore.\u201d \u2022 Hmm. I think the male gaze takes a lot of thwarting. But the detail of the Morisot\u2019s workflow is terrific. A Morisot:<\/p>\n
‘The Psyche Mirror.’ (1876) Berthe Morisot was closely associated with French Impressionism and participated in all the group\u2019s exhibitions. In this work, light is entering from the two windows either side of the mirror, something emphasised by the impressive range of whites. pic.twitter.com\/iZ0AS9qwiS<\/p>\n
\u2014 Richard Morris (@ahistoryinart) November 11, 2023<\/p>\n
Sadly, there is no Morisot bot.<\/p>\n
News of the Wired<\/p>\n
\u201cMatching dinosaur footprints found on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean\u201d [Phys.org]. \u201cAn international team of researchers led by SMU paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs has found matching sets of Early Cretaceous dinosaur footprints on what are now two different continents. More than 260 footprints were discovered in Brazil and in Cameroon, showing where land-dwelling dinosaurs were last able to freely cross between South America and Africa millions of years ago before the two continents split apart. \u2018We determined that in terms of age, these footprints were similar,\u2019 Jacobs said. \u2018In their geological and plate tectonic contexts, they were also similar. In terms of their shapes, they are almost identical.’\u201d<\/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 TH:<\/p>\n
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TH writes: \u201cAlso in the gardens of the Getty Center are walkway ramps that are sometimes lower than the gardens, so one can get the less common view of the undersides of flowers without stooping. Dahlias.\u201d Wow!<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
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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If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!\n<\/p>\n
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