By Lambert Strether of Corrente<\/p>\n
This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 25 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page, which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, PayPal. Clover, or Wise. Read about why we\u2019re doing this fundraiser, what we\u2019ve accomplished in the last year,, and our current goal, strengthening our IT infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Bird Song of the Day<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Gray Catbird, Heckscher SP, East Islip, Suffolk, New York, United States. \u201cSinging from a small wooded area near a marsh.\u201d<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
In Case You Might Miss\u2026 <\/p>\n
Kamala\u2019s Democrat prep.
\nCollard greens and code switching..
\nClean air in the schools? Lol no..
\n H5N1 reassortment in Cambodia.<\/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
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_2024-08-30.png\")
<\/p>\n
The good news for Trump is that Kamala\u2019s post-convention \u201cbounce\u201d seems to have been slight. The good news for Kamala is Trump\u2019s continued deterioration in North Carolina, plus taking a slight lead in Pennsylvania. Remember, however, that all the fluctuations \u2014 in fact, all the leads, top to bottom \u2014 are within the margin of error. <\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
The Debate (September 10)<\/p>\n
Kamala (D): \u201cKamala Harris goes to \u2018debate camp\u2019: Insiders reveal where VP\u2019s preparation is already going \u2018sideways\u2019 as she gets ready for primetime Trump showdown\u201d [Daily Mail]. \u201cSources close to the Harris team tell NOTUS that Harris is a little rusty on the debate stage as \u2018strategy sessions have careened sideways\u2019 when Harris \u2018focused too narrowly on minute details, effectively trailing the sessions.\u2019\u2026 Despite her willingness to debate, Harris and her team are still trying to negotiate the rules of the debate with ABC News, according to a Harris campaign source speaking to NBC News.\u201d Still?! More: \u201cTrump and his team anticipate that Harris is preparing to interrupt him to try and \u2018fact check\u2019 his statements. The former president, however, is aware of Harris and her propensity to get lost into so-called \u2018word salads\u2019 while speaking publicly. \u2018She has bad moments. The way she talks,\u2019 Trump told broadcaster Tucker Carlson in a recent interview, imitating comments the vice president made about school buses. \u2018It\u2019s weird. The whole thing is weird.’\u201d \u2022 Harris: \u201cWho doesn\u2019t love a yellow school bus, right? Can you raise your hand if you love a yellow school bus? Many of us went to school on the yellow school bus, right? It\u2019s part of our experience growing up. It\u2019s part of a nostalgia, a memory of the excitement and joy of going to school to be with your favorite teacher, to be with your best friends and to learn. The school bus takes us there.\u201d It\u2019s true that \u201cIt\u2019s part of a nostalgia\u201d isn\u2019t something a native English speaker would say, but it\u2019s the condescension of \u201cRaise your hands\u201d that gets me. Here\u2019s the video:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The audience, presumably, is adult. Also, the hand gestures. <\/p>\n
Kamala (D): \u201cHow Kamala Harris Plans to Lock In for Debate Prep in Pennsylvania\u201d [NOTUS]. \u201cIn conversations with nearly a dozen people involved with or aware of the preparations, a set of goals emerged for the next week. The campaign is planning to tune out as much of the outside noise as possible to lock her in, aware of Harris\u2019 relative rust as a debater and her tendency to overprepare and fixate on the details.\u201d And: \u201c[S]he\u2019s once again using notecards as part of her prep, a second person familiar with the preparations told NOTUS, a habit they believe she picked up during her law school days.\u201d I would say the habit came from college debate, in which Harris participated. More: \u201cAllies say Harris has had to defend her ideas inside the White House over the last three years, preparing her in some ways for this moment. But Harris is, for all intents and purposes, an out-of-practice debater with people who aren\u2019t her colleagues. Next week\u2019s debate will come just a month shy of four years since she debated Vice President Mike Pence in Utah. For that, aides holed up in a hotel in Salt Lake City days before the debate, as she used index cards to work through talking points \u2014 including the now-famous \u201cI\u2019m speaking\u201d line, which one person involved in the session said was a crowdsourced suggestion.\u201d \u2022\u00a0Hmm. She recycled \u201cI\u2019m speaking,\u201d then. That didn\u2019t go so well. Interestingly, in neither of these two articles to we see any suggestion that Kamala would play the prosecutor (\u201cWhy am I debating a felon?\u201d). Which seems a very obvious thing for her to do. Why go to all the trouble of doing the lawfare if you\u2019re not going to use it in debate?<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Kamala (D): \u201cThe White House wants you to know that Harris was on the call\u201d [Politico]. \u201cName-checking Harris \u2014 or any vice president, for that matter \u2014 is unusual and suggests an attempt to buttress her credentials as she faces questions about her ability to manage international affairs and confronts an experienced opponent in former President Donald Trump. POLITICO\u2019s review of pool reports, readouts, transcripts of administration briefings and comments by the nation\u2019s top diplomats and military officials found that the administration increased its mentions of Harris in public statements about foreign engagements since July, when Biden announced he would drop out of the presidential election and endorsed his vice president.\u201d \u2022 The previous NOTUS article includes this sentence: \u201c[T]he Biden administration is in what they hope to be the last stretch of a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas that might require Harris\u2019 presence in the Situation Room.\u201d Her mere presence\u2026. I know that Harris doing debate prep while a ceasefire deal was being consummated would look bad, but avoiding a bad look seems to be the only reason for her presence.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Kamala (D): \u201cCooking Collard Greens The Caribbean Way\u201d [Caribbean Pot]. \u201cCollard Green or collards is not native to the Caribbean, so it\u2019s not something we would refer to as being traditional. However, with our love for dasheen bush, spinach, Jamaican callaloo (chorai), Bok Choi and just about every other green there is, it\u2019s natural that collards will find a loving home in my kitchen.\u201d \u2022 So, wherever Kamala learned to cook collard greens \u2014 Montreal? Her sorority? \u2014 it\u2019s unlikely to be a family tradition (not on her Jamaican father\u2019s side, and certainly not on her Indian mother\u2019s side).<\/p>\n
Kamala (D): And code switching:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/kamala_code-switching.png\")
<\/p>\n
One of my favorite accounts, on Twitter since 2011. In general, very level-headed. <\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Trump (R): \u201cDonald Trump Interview\u201d (video) [Lex Fridman, YouTube (outside observer)]. \u2022 Smart move by Trump campaign staff:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Trump (R): \u201cQuestions surrounding Trump\u2019s mental acuity are a real 2024 story\u201d [MSNBC]. \u201cThe words below were taken verbatim from a campaign speech\u201d [and they\u2019re an especially dense example of free-form riffing]. \u201cTrump\u2019s asides stack atop each other with such density that it\u2019s dizzying for even professional political observers to discern what he\u2019s trying to get at\u2026. Trump\u2019s speeches seem to be growing more discursive and difficult to comprehend by the day. Those speeches are making it hard, if not impossible, for people listening to them to understand what he wants to do with his power in office, and they\u2019re reportedly turning off voters. They\u2019re also raising questions over whether the chaos he would sow in office would be even less intentional than it was last time. Trump\u2019s deteriorating [asserted, not shown] ability to clearly communicate is a consequential feature of his 2024 candidacy. That deterioration may not have been as salient when Trump, 78, had 81-year-old President Joe Biden as an opponent. But it\u2019s all the more clear as he now faces off against 59-year-old Vice President Kamala Harris. Questions about Biden\u2019s mental acuity were rightly raised in this election cycle. Questions about Trump\u2019s mental acuity should be raised, too.\u201d \u2022 I doubt this will stick, though of course the Democrats are trying it. Trump did fine in debate when he knocked Biden out of the race. Is there any sign of \u201cdeterioration\u201d in the hour-long interview with Fridman? I don\u2019t have time to listen to it, but I\u2019m guessing no, because otherwise the memes would already be out.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
MI: \u201cCAIR 2024 Election Survey 0f Muslim Voters\u201d [CAIR]. \u201cAs the 2024 national general election approaches, America\u2019s estimated 2.5 million Muslim voters are positioned to once again play a crucial role in shaping the political landscape. With their significant presence in key swing states, Muslim voters have the potential to influence the outcomes of not only the presidential race but also numerous congressional, state, and local elections.\u201d \u2022\u00a0Handy chart:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/cair_2024.png\")
<\/p>\n
PA: \u201cTaking the pulse of Pennsylvania\u2019s Trump country, from Amish region to Gettysburg\u201d [USA Today]. \u201cWhile the election may be decided in the suburbs of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, where the majority of the state\u2019s residents live, central Pennsylvania plays a role. It is traditionally red, with small pockets of blue in the cities, but the votes that come from the small businesspeople and churchgoers of the middle of the state \u2013 often referred to derisively as [deplorable] \u2018Pennsyltucky\u2019 \u2013 could make a difference in a state where the final results could be decided by a few thousand votes.\u201d \u2022 Worth a read. And from the York Daily Record, so kudos to USA Today. (Pennsylvania still has a lot of smallish newspapers, as we saw with the reporting from Butler.)<\/p>\n
* * *
\n* * *
\n* * *<\/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
Airborne Transmission: Covid<\/p>\n
\u201cKids Are Headed Back to School. Are They Breathing Clean Air?\u201d [Scientific American]. Lol no. \u201cAcross the U.S., kids are headed back to their classrooms\u2014just as COVID nears a fresh, late-summer peak. Somehow, four years into a viral pandemic that everyone now knows spreads through the air, most schools have done little to nothing to make sure their students will breathe safely. We\u2014and especially our children\u2014should be able to walk into a store or a gym or a school and assume the air is clean to breathe. Like water from the faucet, regulations should ensure our air is safe. \u2018Air is tricky. You can choose to not partake of the water or the snacks on the table, but you can\u2019t just abstain from breathing,\u2019 notes Gigi Gronvall, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an author of a 2021 report on the benefits of improving ventilation in schools.\u201d \u2022\u00a0Somehow. Some schools are doing just fine, though!<\/p>\n
Transmission: H5N1<\/p>\n
Maskstravaganza<\/p>\n
\u201c\u201dPerfect storm\u201d of criminalization: Analyzing mask bans\u201d [The Sick Times]. State by state list. \u201cMost media coverage fails to connect the new wave of mask bans to the ongoing political efforts to minimize COVID-19. Overblown concerns about facial recognition and protestors are only possible with a concurrent effort to downplay the threat of COVID-19 and erase signs of it from public life \u2014 now a priority for most mainstream politicians. While the conversation around mask bans has focused on new laws and bills, 21 states and many municipalities have laws banning masks and\/or disguises in different settings, which is more than other organizations have reported. Even where these bans have apparent limitations or exemptions, the finer language of the laws leaves all COVID-conscious people vulnerable. And the historic practices of police endanger people even in states with no legal bans\u2026. Historically, mask bans tend to come in waves. This current wave has been led by Republicans, with Democrats following closely behind. While Democrats tend to pay slightly more lip service to health needs, their actions undermine their promises.\u201d Excellent read. But then there\u2019s this: \u201cMore broadly, activists need to build solidarity among all of the groups affected by mask bans, including disabled people, pro-Palestine protesters, religious minorities, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people.\u201d \u2022 AND THE ENTIRE WORKING CLASS, FSS. You can\u2019t even talk about, say, unionized HCWs betrayed by their nationals using idpol as a framework. Get a grip, people!<\/p>\n
Vaccines: Covid<\/p>\n
\u201cTrying to time your vaccines just right? There are no easy answers, but here are some factors to consider\u201d [Helen Branswell, STAT]. \u201cThe standard advice \u2014 get your shots, get them at the same time, don\u2019t wait too long to roll up your sleeves \u2014 is designed to maximize convenience and compliance, in a way that is manageable for the delivery enterprise, say experts familiar with the enormous effort it takes to turn vaccines into vaccinations. But is it the right approach for you? Possibly not, though unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all answer here. Because while we talk about cold and flu season, in reality these viruses strike at different times in different years, and they do not give us advance notice of their plans. The immunity we develop from the available vaccines \u2014 at least those for Covid and flu \u2014 erodes in the months after we get them. If flu season takes off in January, a shot administered in August won\u2019t have the impact of a shot received in late October.\u201d \u2022 This is CDC\u2019s advice, and the assumption is that Covid is seasonal, when in fact it\u2019s driven by people sharing air: Social Relations. Trivially, this means not \u201cSummer\u201d but \u201cVacation Travel\u201d season, not \u201cFall,\u201d but \u201cBack to School\u201d season, and not \u201cWinter,\u201d but \u201cHoliday\u201d season. Less trivial, \u201cMobility\u201d (especially air travel) is constant and year-round, and that\u2019s what got us the first time, as Taleb et al. presciently showed in January 2020.<\/p>\n
Denial and Cope<\/p>\n
\u201cAs COVID Surges, the High Price of Viral Denial\u201d [The Tyee]. Canada. \u201cThe subject of how to respond to a slow burn pandemic remains taboo because most public health officials have already declared the emergency over. They\u2019ve also stopped collecting critical data. COVID-19 deaths in Canada are not reported in a readily publicly accessible fashion. And most of the media pretends that an immune-destabilizing virus that can harm the functioning of your organs including your brain has little more import than a benign cold. As a consequence, authorities can\u2019t now turn around and admit to the breadth of their mistake, let alone acknowledge the growing disorder in public health. Nor do they dare collect critical data documenting the scale of their errors including the relentless march of long COVID\u2026. Here, then, is where we\u2019ve arrived. We\u2019ve entered a vicious cycle where more infections generate more COVID variants. The new variants have become more immune evasive. At the same time society has generally abandoned masks, testing and basic public health messages. We could slow and suppress the cycle by facing the challenge squarely. For example, by cleaning dirty air the way we once tackled the disease-ridden spectre of cholera-infested water. But public health officials are afraid to talk about clean air let alone the obvious: avoiding infection. Beating back COVID requires hard work, communal wisdom and clear policies that markedly reduce the level of infection in society. To date we have chosen viral denial, dirty air and a triumphant reign for long COVID.\u201d \u2022 Excellent article, worth reading in full.<\/p>\n
Prevention<\/p>\n
\u201cNewly Discovered Antibody Protects Against All COVID-19 Variants\u201d (press release) [University of Texas at Austin]. \u201cAs part of a new study on hybrid immunity to the virus, the large, multi-institution research team led by The University of Texas at Austin discovered and isolated a broadly neutralizing plasma antibody, called SC27, from a single patient. Using technology developed over several years of research into antibody response, the team led by UT engineers and scientists obtained the exact molecular sequence of the antibody, opening the possibility of manufacturing it on a larger scale for future treatments\u2026 During the more than four years since the discovery of COVID-19, the virus that causes it has rapidly evolved. Each new variant has displayed different characteristics, many of which made them more resistant to vaccines and other treatments. Protective antibodies bind to a part of the virus called the spike protein that acts as an anchor point for the virus to attach to and infect the cells in the body. By blocking the spike protein, the antibodies prevent this interaction and, therefore, also prevent infection. SC27 recognized the different characteristics of the spike proteins in the many COVID variants. Fellow UT researchers, who were the first to decode the structure of the original spike protein and paved the way for vaccines and other treatments, verified SC27\u2019s capabilities.\u201d \u2022 Funded by the NIH and the Gates Foundation, among others. Here is the article from which the press release is derived\u2013<\/p>\n
\u201cHybrid immunity to SARS-CoV-2 arises from serological recall of IgG antibodies distinctly imprinted by infection or vaccination\u201d [Cell]. \u201cOur findings provide a detailed molecular definition of immunological imprinting and show that vaccination can produce class 1\/4 (SC27-like) IgG antibodies circulating in the blood.\u201d \u2022 That\u2019s the best I can do, sorry; the rest of the article might as well be written in Martian, for me. Perhaps some kind reader will translate. I do note, however, that the article is based on data from 6 (six) donors; the Ns seem to be for lineages, not donors.<\/p>\n
Elite Maleficence<\/p>\n
\u201cSimple measures lessen hospital-acquired COVID-19 infections\u201d [Burnet]. Australia. \u201cIn a new study published in the Journal of Hospital Infections, Burnet researchers found simple infection control measures could save lives and reduce costs for hospitals. These measures include testing patients for COVID-19 on admission, requiring staff to wear N95 masks in clinical areas and using Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) or Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests to prevent transmissions. One of the paper\u2019s lead authors, Burnet Associate Professor Nick Scott, said on average, 15-25% of patients who tested positive for COVID-19 in hospital had contracted the virus after being admitted.\u201d \u2022 But HICPAC would prefer that hospitals be death traps so, no N95s. Baggy blues only, if that!<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts<\/p>\n
Wastewater<\/p>\n
This week[1] CDC August 26:<\/p>\n
Last Week[2] CDC (until next week):<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/covid-cdc-ww-natl-3.png\")
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/covid-cdc-ww-natl-2.png\")
<\/p>\n
Variants [3] CDC August 31<\/p>\n
Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC August 24 <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/covid-cdc-variants-natl-3.png\")
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/covid-cdc-ed-natl.png\")
<\/p>\n
Hospitalization<\/p>\n
New York[5] New York State, data August 30:<\/p>\n
National [6] CDC August 10:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/covid-ny-hospitalization-nyc.png\")
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/covid-cdc-hospitalization-natl-3.png\")
<\/p>\n
Positivity<\/p>\n
National[7] Walgreens September 3:<\/p>\n
Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic August 24:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/covid-walgreens-positivity-states.png\")
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/covid-cleveland-positivity-.png\")
<\/p>\n
Travelers Data<\/p>\n
Positivity[9] CDC August 12:
\n Variants[10] CDC August 12:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/covid-cdc-positivity-travelers-3.png\")
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/covid-cdc-variants-travelers-3.png\")
<\/p>\n
Deaths<\/p>\n
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC August 24:<\/p>\n
Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC August 24:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/covid-cdc-deaths-positivity-natl-1.png\")
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/covid-cd-ed-natl.png\")
<\/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] (ED) Down, but worth noting that Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.<\/p>\n
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Flat, that is, no longer down.<\/p>\n
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.<\/p>\n
[7] (Walgreens) Big drop, but all those white states showing no change: Labor Day weekend reporting issues?<\/p>\n
[8] (Cleveland) Dropping.<\/p>\n
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down. 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) What the heck is LB.1?<\/p>\n
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up. If the United States is like Canada, deaths are several undercounted:<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\u2014 Dr.Robert Strang (@DSlayer520) September 2, 2024<\/p>\n
[12] Deaths low, ED up.<\/p>\n
Stats Watch<\/p>\n
\u201cUnited States Factory Orders\u201d [Trading Economics]. \u201cNew orders for US manufactured goods rose by 5% from the previous month to $592.1 billion in July of 2024, rebounding from the 3.3% drop in the previous month, and above market expectations of a 4.7% increase, signaling the resilience of the US economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Tech: Uh oh:<\/p>\n
Hachette v. Internet Archive is out: 2d Circuit rejects controlled digital lending theory; IA’s use is not transformative; all four fair use factors favor the publishers; the public benefits from shutting down IA’s infringement. #copyright <\/p>\n
\u2014 Devlin Hartline (@devlinhartline) September 4, 2024<\/p>\n
Tech: \u201cCanva says its new AI features justify raising subscription prices by 300%\u201d [Fortune]. \u201cIn the U.S., some Canva users will see their Teams subscription price jump in early December from $119.99 per year to $500 per year. The first 12 months will be discounted to $300, but it\u2019s still more than double what users currently pay. Canva Teams will update from $10 per month per person, with a minimum of three people required for that subscription, a Canva spokesperson confirmed. Canva says its price hike is attributable to new features\u2014particularly those that are AI-powered.\u201d \u2022 So, lots more AI slop to justify the investment\u2026. <\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Fear & Greed Index: 54 Neutral (previous close: 65 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 56 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Sep 4 at 1:27:54 PM ET.<\/p>\n
Gallery<\/p>\n
Back when Intel was hot:<\/p>\n
Navajo weaving of an Intel Pentium, 1994 pic.twitter.com\/gQwNnoCcP9<\/p>\n
\u2014 Daniel Feldman (@d_feldman) September 2, 2024<\/p>\n
Class Warfare<\/p>\n
\u201cThousands of hotel workers continue nationwide strike on Labor Day, demanding higher pay\u201d [NBC]. \u201cThousands of workers at 25 hotels across the country remained on strike for a second day Monday, demanding higher pay and the reversal of pandemic-era cuts, with members in more cities expected to join the strike. On Sunday, around 10,000 hotel workers walked off the job, kicking off the strike during the busy Labor Day weekend at 25 hotels in eight cities, including San Diego, Seattle, San Francisco, Boston and Honolulu. The workers are represented by the UNITE HERE union and work for the Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt hotel chains\u2026.. Roughly half of those on strike, about 5,000, are from Honolulu, The Associated Press reported\u2026. UNITE HERE says strikes have been authorized and could begin soon in other cities, including Baltimore; New Haven, Connecticut; Oakland, California; and Providence, Rhode Island\u2026. The union said similar strikes led to contracts last year for Los Angeles hotel workers and Detroit casino workers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Animals, Ourselves\u201d [Lux Magazine]. \u201cConservatives are terrified by the prospect of a society that truly values and decommodifies (non-fetal) life, which is why they promote an image of flesh-consuming masculinity. Unfortunately, it seems many socialists are not so different. Leftists rarely engage with the myriad problems of animal agriculture, and are often dismissive or contemptuous of those who do. In this, their views are utterly mainstream. A recent episode of the popular lefty podcast Citations Needed began with an analysis of representations of vegetarian characters in popular culture, and the result was hardly flattering \u2014 routinely played by women, they tend to be insufferable. Such gendered stereotyping will come as no surprise to readers of Carol Adam\u2019s 1990 book The Sexual Politics of Meat, which weaves accounts of 19th century radicalism and examinations of 20th century marketing techniques into a pathbreaking work of \u2018feminist vegetarian critical theory\u2019 (after reading Adams, you will never hear a woman say she felt treated as a \u2018piece of meat\u2019 in the same way). Today we are often told that the animal rights movement came into being in the 1970s, birthed by the white male philosopher Peter Singer\u2026. In the English-speaking world, many women abolitionists, suffragettes, and pacifists advocated for vegetarianism and made connections across movements and causes long before Singer\u2026 came on the scene, including the courageous abolitionist sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimk\u00e9, who rejected meat in part because they thought it would hasten the \u2019emancipation of woman from the toil of the kitchen.\u2019 Singer rode roughshod over these intellectual antecedents by distinguishing his supposedly rational arguments from all the emotional \u2014 that is, feminine \u2014 advocacy that came before it. In the 1800s, there was even a diagnosis, zoophilpsychosis, for the affliction of being overly concerned for animals, from which women were believed to disproportionately suffer.\u201d \u2022\u00a0Zoophilpsychosis\u2026 <\/p>\n
News of the Wired<\/p>\n
\u201cRaw Milk and the Collapse of Consensus Reality\u201d [Talia Levin, the Sword and the Sandwich]. \u201cPasteurization changed the dairy game. By 1911, Chicago and New York had mandated milk pasteurization in commercial operations, with other major cities quickly following suit; by 1936, 98% of milk in the United States was pasteurized. This coincided with lots of other medical discoveries and improvements in public hygiene, but the milk-pasteurization push had particularly drastic effects: between 1890 and 1915, infant mortality dropped by more than half. By midcentury, babies drinking swill milk and dying of diarrhea was largely a thing of the past. Most people would agree that this is, generally, a good thing. I personally drink milk daily with my coffee; I am glad it doesn\u2019t come with a side of typhoid. But, of course, we live in a time, and in a society, where not everyone agrees. The movement for \u201craw\u201d unpasteurized milk has been gathering steam for years, and is currently operating at a fever pitch, between social media influencers and right-wing figures actually affecting state laws. Which is\u2026 upsetting, to put it very mildly. Putting pasteurization in historical context makes the movement against it all the more stark: we\u2019re talking about people who, wittingly or not, seek to bring back widespread diphtheria and babies shitting themselves to death. It\u2019s not a good scene.\u201d \u2022\u00a0No, it\u2019s not. I encountered the idea of raw milk in the context of \u201clocal food sovereignty\u201d in Maine, where it buying milk from a stand at a local farm seems reasonable (and resilient, post-collapse). Industrialized production and distribution of raw milk is not that, and it\u2019s an absurdly bad idea. Why not give your children a spoonful of sh*t in their cereal, too? Toughen up their immune systems against cholera, unlike those pansy Victorian sanitary engineers.<\/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 artinnature:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/bumble_bee.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Artinnature writes: \u201cBumblebees on Oxydendrum arboreum (Sourwood).\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Print](\"https:\/\/cdn.printfriendly.com\/buttons\/print-button-gray.png\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n